UNIVERSITY  OF 

ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 

AT  URBANACHAWIPAIGN 

ILL  HIST.  SURVEY 


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From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,   SIXTEENTH  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 
From  a  favorite  photograph  taken  by  Brady  in  1864. 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF 

LINCOLN 

A  Biography  Composed  of 

FIVE  HUNDRED  TRUE  STORIES 

Told  by  Abraham   Lincoln  and  his  Friends 

selected  from  all  authentic  sources,  and 
fitted   together  in  order,   forming 

HIS  COMPLETE  LIFE  HISTORY 

by 

WAYNE  WHIPPLE 

Author  of 

"The  Story  of  the  White  House  and  Its  Home  Life," 

"The  Minute  Man,"    "The  Story  of 

Plymouth  Rock,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 

With  150  engravings  from  Photographs,  Paintings,  Drawings  and  Manuscripts, 
some  of  which  have  not  before  been  published 


Philadelphia 

THE  JOHN  C.  WINSTON  COMPANY 

Publishers 


Copyright   1908 
By  Wayne  Whipple 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
MY  FATHER 


(V) 


And  so  he  came. 
From  prairie  cabin  up  to  Capitol, 
One  fair  ideal  led  our  chieftain  on, 
Forevermore  he  burned  to  do  his  deed 
With  the  fine  stroke  and  gesture  of  a  king. 
He  built  the  rail  pile  as  he  built  the  State, 
Pouring  his  splendid  strength  through  every  blow, 
The  conscience  of  him  testing  every  stroke, 
To  make  his  deed  the  measure  of  a  man. 

So  came  the  Captain  with  the  mighty  heart; 
And  when  the  step  of  earthquake  shook  the  house, 
Wresting  the  rafters  from  their  ancient  hold, 
He  held  the  ridge-pole  up  and  spiked  again 
The  rafters  of  the  Home.     He  held  his  place- 
Held  the  long  purpose  like  a  growing  tree- 
Held  on  through  blame  and  faltered  not  at  praise, 
And  when  he  fell  in  whirlwind,  he  went  down 
As  when  a  kingly  cedar,  green  with  boughs, 
Goes  down  with  a  great  shout  upon  the  hills, 
And  leaves  a  lonesome  place  against  the  sky. 

Lincoln  and  Other  Poems,  Edwin  Markham. 


IVI 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Lincoln  Story  and  What  It  Has  Done 


The  life-story  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  told  in  many  lands 
like  a  favorite  Bible  story.  His  career  is  as  familiar  among 
the  nations  as  that  of  his  ancient  prototype,  Moses.  No 
man's, life  in  all  the  history  of  the  world  shines  out  with  so 
many  story-gems  as  the  every-day  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
No  incident  in  which  he  figured,  even  during  the  barren  days 
of  his  boyhood,  was  too  homely  or  too  trivial  to  be  invested 
with  the  quaint  charm  of  his  striking  personality.  The  Lin- 
coln Story  has  its  own  original  flavor — easy  to  enjoy,  yet 
impossible  to  describe. 

His  wonderful  career  abounds  in  the  strong  contrasts 
which  appeal  to  every  one.  He  was  born  in  a  rude  cabin  which 
is  now  radiant  in  reflected  light  from  the  White  House.  Other 
Presidents  began  their  lives  in  humble  log  cabins,  but  the  fact 
is  not  universally  known.  While  it  is  true  that  Lincoln  suf- 
fered many  privations,  the  accounts  of  his  extreme  poverty 
have  been  exaggerated  by  political  friends  and  foes.  His 
enemies  tried  to  make  out  that  the  Lincoln  family  belonged 
to  the  weak  and  lazy  class  known  in  the  South  as  "  poor  white 
trash" — they  even  attempted  to  cast  a  stigma  upon  his 
birth.  But  Abraham  Lincoln  was  descended  on  both  sides 
from  long  lines  of  honest,  thrifty  and  respected  English  and 
American  ancestors,  of  whom  his  immediate  family,  with  the 
true  pioneer's  indifference  to  pedigree,  knew  little  and  cared 
less.  The  poverty  in  which  Lincoln  grew  up  was  like  that  of 
most  of  the  early  settlers  of  the  western  wilds  in  which  he 
lived.  Even  the  wealthier  pioneers  endured  greater  hardships 
than  the  poorest  laborers  in  the  United  States  of  the  present 
day. 

Lincoln's  life  was  steeped  in  pathos.     Long  before  his 

(viO. 


viii  THE  LINCOLN  STORY 


assassination,  he  showed  the  true  martyr  spirit.  The  humor 
which  people  saw  in  him  was  Hke  the  rare  comedy  that 
reHeves  the  majestic  tragedies  of  Shakespeare.  He  bubbled 
over  with  funny  stories  because,  beneath  the  surface,  his  soul 
was  seething  with  the  sorrows  of  every-day  life.  He  went 
about  trying  to  do  good  to  every  creature — from  cutting  wood 
for  a  neighboring  widow  to  climbing  trees  in  patient  search  for 
the  bird's-nest  from  which  two  fledglings  had  fallen.  When 
his  lawyer-companions  laughed  at  him  for  wasting  his  time  in 
such  a  childish  pursuit,  he  exclaimed,  with  deep  feeling: 

"  I  could  not  have  slept  if  I  had  not  restored  those  little 
birds  to  their  mother. ' ' 

Lincoln's  friends  assert  that  his  face,  in  repose,  was  the 
saddest  they  ever  saw.  "  Just  to  gaze  upon  his  unconscious  ex- 
pression, ' '  they  said,  "  would  make  you  cry. ' '  He  never  could 
see  suffering  without  doing  all  he  could  to  relieve  it.  With  all  his 
jokes  and  stories,  his  great,  hungering  heart  was  full  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  troubles  of  others.  During  his  sorrowing  years 
in  the  White  House  a  new  network  of  wrinkles  and  seams 
harrowed  his  homely  face,  and  his  sunken  eyes  appeared  to 
deepen  and  sadden  in  their  sockets.  His  kindly  countenance 
soon  became  a  sensitive  map  of  the  Civil  War,  where  Bull  Run 
and  Chancellorsville  left  their  wavering  lines  and  indelible 
marks.  The  loss  of  the  soldiers '  lives,  the  privations  of  the 
prisoners,  the  agonies  of  the  wounded,  the  anguish  of  the  be- 
reaved— all  traced  their  furrows  in  the  rugged  features  of 
the  all-friendly  face  of  ' 'Father  Abraham." 

Especially  during  the  heart- sickening  years  of  the  War, 
President  Lincoln  manifested  a  feverish  fondness  for  "some- 
thing funny. ' '  On  a  number  of  occasions  he  took  from  a 
drawer  in  the  long  table,  around  which  his  Cabinet  sat  in 
solemn  conclave,  "the  latest  thing"  by  ''Artemus  Ward," 
or  "Petroleum  V.  Nasby, "  the  best  known  humorists  of  that 
day.  Several  of  the  Secretaries,  deficient  in  the  sense  of 
humor,  expressed  their  disapproval  of  such  trifling  in  the 
midst  of  their  dignified  deliberations.  A  Congressman  once 
took  the  President  to  task,  claiming  that  such  stories  were 
inconsistent  with  true  concern  for  the  country's  welfare.  Lin- 
coln replied  with  fervor : 


AND  WHAT  IT  HAS  DONE  lx 

"You  can  not  be  more  anxious  than  I  am  constantly; 
and  I  say  to  you  now  that  if  it  were  not  for  this  occasional 
vent  I  should  die. " 

This  saving  sense  of  humor  was  like  daily  dew  to  the 
drooping  spirits  of  the  careworn  President,  and  its  sustaining 
freshness  must  have  had  an  inestimable  influence  in  the  final 
preservation  of  the  Union.  Indeed,  it  is  fair  to  question 
whether  Abraham  Lincoln  did  not  achieve  more  for  humanity 
by  his  shining  example — teaching  all  the  people  to  look  on  the 
bright  side  during  the  darkest  hours  of  calamity  and  defeat — 
than  by  penning  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  itself.  It  is 
at  least  true  that  the  White  House,  through  Lincoln's  adminis- 
tration, with  its  sublime  sorrows  and  sufferings,  became  the 
headquarters  for  the  kind  of  fun-making  that  is  now  recognized 
all  over  the  world  as  "American  humor. "  As  the  wise  saws 
of  ''Poor  Richard"  and  other  quaint  conceits  of  Franklin,  did 
much  to  gain  foreign  recognition  for  the  United  States  of 
America  in  the  early  days  of  her  independence,  so  the  homely 
stories  and  illustrations  of  Lincoln  again  demonstrated  that 
"one  touch  of  Nature  makes  the  whole  world  kin."  That 
subtle  play  of  humor  and  common-sense,  radiating  from  the 
White  House,  as  its  center,  has  projected  itself  all  around  the 
globe  and  into  the  Twentieth  Century,  lubricating  the  wheels 
of  American  commerce,  diplomacy  and  progress,  and  estab- 
lishing the  United  States  to-day  in  the  highest  among  the 
"  Seats  of  the  Mighty"  as  an  acknowledged  world  power. 

Lincoln  used  to  protest  against  calling  his  commonplace 
illustrations  "Lincoln  stories." 

"I  am  not  a  manufacturer,  "  he  explained,  "but  a  retailer 
of  stories. ' ' 

Yet  his  genius  made  the  stories  of  others  his  own.  They 
were  pat,  pithy  and  to  the  point.  He  usually  told  a  story  to 
enforce  a  truth,  to  save  the  time  and  temper  so  often  lost 
in  arguing.  Lincoln's  stories  rank  about  midway  between 
^sop's  fables  and  the  caricatures  of  the  present  day. 

Lincoln  and  his  friends  have  repeatedly  stated  that  he 
never  told  a  story  for  the  mere  sake  of  telling  a  story,  but  to 
illustrate  an  idea  or  impress  a  truth.     Therefore  a  great  in- 


THE  LINCOLN  STORY 


justice  has  unintentionally  been  done  to  Lincoln's  memory  by 
wrenching  his  stories  from  their  settings  and  printing  them 
indiscriminately,  as  in  the  common  collections  of  Lincoln 
stories  and  ''yarns."  Like  a  specimen  of  sea-life  torn  from 
its  shell,  the  beauty  and  charm  of  the  Lincoln  story  is  lost  by 
separating  it  from  the  occasion  which  produced  it.  Therefore 
Lincoln  stories  cannot  be  true  without  the  Lincoln  settings. 
Like  uncut  and  unmounted  gems,  the  collections  of  detached 
stories  lose  their  Lincoln  luster  and  become  dull,  ''stale,  fiat 
and  unprofitable."  It  is  the  endeavor  of  this  Story-Life 
to  preserve  the  real  Lincoln  charm  and  flavor,  and  to  illus- 
trate— as  he  was  so  fond  of  doing — the  life-growth  of  the 
master  story-teller  himself. 

From  almost  inexhaustible  mines  of  Lincoln  material, 
five  hundred  of  the  shortest  and  best  narratives  have  been 
gathered  from  about  a  hundred  different  sources,  and  strung, 
like  a  necklace  of  precious  stones,  on  the  thread  of  Lincoln's 
life,  forming  a  connected  and  complete  biography  of  the 
greatest  of  the  Presidents.  These  authentic  stories  have  been 
chosen  to  illustrate  the  real  life  and  characteristics,  as  well  as 
the  genius,  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Some  of  them  are  brim- 
ming over  with  fun;  others,  with  tears.  Many  of  them  have 
never  before  been  published  in  any  life  of  Lincoln,  and  some 
are  here  presented  for  the  first  time  in  print.  Many  of  the 
finest  passages  from  the  great  Lives  of  Lincoln  are  repeated 
herein  with  the  ready  permissions  of  their  authors  and  pub- 
lishers. Full  credit  is  given  in  connection  with  each  excerpt 
and  anecdote. 

Specific  acknowledgment  of  all  these  kindnesses  is  made 
on  another  page,  also  of  the  courtesies  of  a  number  of  the  great 
collectors  of  Lincoln  relics. 

Therefore,  The  Story-Life  of  Lincoln  is  his  life-story, 
breathing,  true  and  coherent,  as  told  by  his  friends,  his  rela- 
tives, his  acquaintances — a  few  of  his  enemies — but  best  of 
all — ^by  Abraham  Lincoln  himself. 


PLAN  OF  THE  BOOK 


Lincoln  was  the  Master  Story  Teller.  Every  "Lincoln 
■  story"  has  a  special  bearing  on  his  life.  His  personality  Vv^as 
so  strong  and  peculiar  that  every  event  or  incident  in  his  life 
has  been  the  subject  of  a  story — told  by  some  friend  or  writer 
of  his  life  or  of  observations  concerning  him.  A  thousand 
books  have  been  written  about  Abraham  Lincoln.  Every 
person  who  knew  or  ever  saw  him  has  written  about  it  in 
books  and  magazines.  Lincoln  himself  has  told  innumerable 
stories  which  are  repeated  everywhere,  like  yEsop's  fables, 
because  every  story  illustrates  or  impresses  some  truth  or 
idea.  Indeed,  they  cannot  be  true  Lincoln  stories  unless  seen 
with  all  their  bearings  on  Lincoln's  life  or  the  events  of  his  time. 

There  are  many  collections  of  so-called  Lincoln  stories, 
and  ''yarns"  in  which  the  tales  are  torn  from  their  surround- 
ings and  all  the  Lincoln  flavor  is  gone.     They  seem  dull,  flat 
and  pointless. 

Every  true  Lincoln  story  is  a  gem,  but  it  must  be  shown 
only  with  the  Lincoln  setting. 

Wayne  Whipple  has  at  last  combined  the  Lincoln  story 
with  Lincoln's  life.  He  has  spent  years  in  hunting  out 
everything  that  has  ever  been  said  and  written  about  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  especially  everything  which  Lincoln  ever  told 
of  himself  or  that  would  shed  light  upon  his  own  life  and 
character. 

He  has  collected  the  best  stories  from  all  the  great  Lives  of 
Lincoln;  the  best  of  the  reminiscences  of  public  men  and 
friends  of  Lincoln.  He  has  interviewed  those  who  knew  Lin- 
coln, and  he  has  chosen  the  best  stories  Lincoln  himself  told 
— with  a  special  bearing  on  his  own  life  and  the  history  of 
his  time. 

The  five  hundred  stories  composing  The  Story-Life  of 
Lincoln  are  connected  with  about  as  many  events  or  incidents 


xtl  PLAN  OF  THE  BOOK 

as  they  happened  in  his  life.  They  are  the  cream  of  all  the 
Lincoln  literature.  They  cannot  help  making  the  best  Life 
of  Lincoln  ever  published  because  they  are  the  choicest  of 
everything  that  has  been  written  or  told  about  him. 

In  reading  these  stories,  entertaining,  sad  and  laugh- 
able, you  follow  Abraham  Lincoln  in  a  connected,  continuous 
life-story,  through  the  hardships  of  his  backwoods  boyhood; 
the  struggles  of  his  early  manhood;  his  debates  with  Douglas; 
his  contest  against  slavery,  his  trials  as  War  President,  his 
mastery  of  Stanton;  his  tenderness  for  the  ''Boys  in  Blue;" 
and  his  final  triumph  and  martyrdom.  Never  has  his  life- 
history  been  so  vividly  told.  It  is  all  so  graphic  that  it  paints 
a  mental  panorama  of  the  great  events  before  and  during 
the  Civil  War.  You  see  it  all  as  you  never  expected  to  see 
it,  and  it  makes  such  an  indelible  impression  upon  you  that 
you  could  not  forget  it  even  if  you  would. 

The  current  events  of  Lincoln's  time  are  given  separately 
side  by  side  with  the  thrilling  story-narrative  to  aid  in  making 
The  Story-Life  of  Lincoln  of  real  historical  and  educational 
'value.  The  history  of  the  time  is  thus  hung  upon  Lincoln's 
unique  personality  as  a  peg.  Lincoln 's  life- story  thus  becomes 
your  country's  history  during  that  most  important  epoch 
through  which  Lincoln  lived. 

The  150  illustrations  are  selected  in  the  same  manner. 
They  are  from  the  best  of  all  that  Art  affords  concerning 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Many  photographs  and  facsimiles  which 
fiave  never  before  been  reproduced  are  here  added.  While 
the  object  of  this  great  book  is  to  amuse  and  entertain,  the 
highest  aim  is  to  make  it  of  great  and  permanent  value. 

For  all  these  reasons  The  Story-Life  of  Lincoln  marks  a  | 
new  era  in  fascinating  biography.  | 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  ; 


PACK 


Introduction :  The  Lincoln  Story  and  What  It  Has  Done vii 

Plan  of  the  Book xi 

List  of  Illustrations 13 

Chapter  I 
Lincoln's  Immediate  Ancestors 17 

Stories: — Abraham  Lincoln,  the  President's  Grandfather — Uncle  Morde- 
cai — Boyhood  of  Lincoln's  Father — Nancy  Hanks,  Lincoln's  Mother — 
Marriage  of  Lincoln's  Father  and  Mother — How  Tom  and  Nancy  Lin- 
coln Began  Life  Together. 

Chapter  II 
First  Seven  Years  in  Kentucky 22 

Stories: — Birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln — Cousin  Dennis  Hanks  Tells  about 
"Nancy's  Boy  Baby" — The  Little  Boy's  First  Teachers — Little  Abe's 
Narrow  Escape  from  Drowning — The  Boy  Meets  a  Soldier — Abe  Goes 
to  Mill  and  "Thrashes"  Three  Boys — First  Work  on  the  Farm — Leav- 
ing "Old  Kentucky." 

Chapter  III 

Fourteen  Years  in  Indiana 30 

Stories: — Moving  to  Indiana — The  Home  in  Indiana — A  Seven-year-old 
Woodman — Death  of  Lincoln's  Own  Mother — The  Delayed  Funeral 
Services — "What  Is  Home  without  a  Mother?" — The  Coming  of  the  New 
Mother — "Corn  Dodgers  and  Common  Doings" — Turkey  Buzzard  Pens, 
Briar  Root  Ink,  and  Webster's  Speller — At  Hazel  Dorsey's  School — 
"No  Common  Boy" — "Manners"  and  Spelling — "I  Hung  on  It  and  It 
Broke" — Some  Schoolboy  Rhymes — Writes  and  "Preaches"  Against  Cru- 
elty to  Animals— "Abe  Was  a  'Mother's  Boy'  "—"The  Best  Boy  I  Ever 
Saw" — How,  What  and  When  He  Read — Lincoln  Tells  of  His  First 
Love  Story — Pioneer  Superstitions — How  He  Came  to  Own  Weems's 
"Washington" — Bounding  an   Idea — Knocked   down   for   Being  "For- 


CONTENTS 


PASS 

ward" — Sports  and  Amusements — An  Interrupted  Sentence — Influ- 
ences and  Impressions — Hired  Man  Where  His  Sister  Was  Maid- 
of-all-work — From  Ferryman  to  Butcher — A  Feat  of  Mercy  and 
Strength — How  the  Lad  Worked  and  Studied — The  Story  of  His  First 
Dollar — Early  Death  of  Lincoln's  Sister — Once  When  Abe  Didn't  Allow 
Fair  Play — In  Jones's  Grocery-Store  and  on  the  Stump — A  Murder 
Case  at  Boonville— "Tell  Us  How  Many  Short  Breaths  He  Drew  !"— 
Abe  Teaches  Astronomy — How  They  Were  "Treated"  at  Church — The 
Little  Yellow  Dog  as  a  Coon— "Tell  the  Whole  Truth,  'Tilda"— First 
Trip  to  New  Orleans. 

Chapter  IV 
Removal  to  Illinois 72 

Stories: — Starting  for  Illinois — As  a  Traveling  Peddler — Wades  Icy  Waters 
to  Rescue  a  Dog — Splitting  the  Historic  Rails — Abe  Starts  out  for 
Himself — A  Thousand  Rails  for  a  Pair  of  Trousers — "The  Winter  of 
the  Deep  Snow" — Rail-splitting  and  Speech-making — Denton  Offutt 
Engages  Hanks,  Lincoln  and  Johnston — Building  the  Flatboat  and  Tell- 
ing Yarns — Lincoln  Saves  Three  Lives — His  First  Sight  of  the  "Horrors 
of  Human  Slavery" — A  Voodoo  Prophecy — Abe  Throws  Needham,  the 
Champion  Wrestler. 

Chapter  V 

Six  Years  at  New  Salem 8e 

Stories: — A  Stranger  Who  Could  "Make  a  Few  Rabbit  Tracks" — Piloting 
a  Flatboat  down  Illinois  River — Storekeeper  and  Miller — Encounters  the 
"Clary's  Grove  Boys" — Meets  Young  Yates — Two  Stories  of  "His  Sensi- 
tive Honesty" — Borrows  a  Grammar  and  Masters  It — Gives  a  Bully  a 
Dose  of  "Smartweed" — How  Abe  Induced  His  Fellow  Clerk  to  Quit 
Gambling — Becomes  a  Candidate  for  the  First  Time — A  "Try"  Weekly 
Steamer— Why  He  Was  Called  "Honest  Abe"— A  "Raw"  Captain  in  the 
Black  Hawk  War — Risked  His  Life  in  Rescuing  an  Indian — A  Gruesome 
Picture — Half-starved  but  Good-natured  Soldiers — Re-enlisted  as  a 
"Dignified  Private"— "The  Strongest  Man  I  Ever  Met !"— Distinguished 
Men  in  the  Black  Hawk  War — A  Romantic  but  Doubtful  Statement — 
Romantic  Story  Officially  Denied — Returning  from  the  War — Humor- 
ous Reference  to  His  Record — Only  Time  Lincoln  Was  Ever  Defeated 
by  the  People — Lincoln  and  Smoot — The  Firm  of  Berry  &  Lincoln — 
Becomes  Possessor  of  "Blackstone"— First  Effort  at  Public  Speaking— 
The  Store  that  "Winked  Out"— Studying  Law  on  the  Woodpile— 
"Chops  up  a  House  for  'Ab'  Trent"— Introduced  to  "Shakespeare"  and 
"Burns"— Junior  Partner,  Rail-splitter,  Farm-hand  and  Postmaster— 
"Anything  for  Me?"— A.  Lincoln,  Deputy  Surveyor— A  Picnic  Where 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Lincoln  Was  Surveying — Clary's  Grove  Champion  Becomes  a  Staunch 
Friend — Where  His  Kindness  of  Heart  Made  Trouble — His  First  Real 
Stump  Speech,  in  the  Campaign  of  1834 — Love  and  Ambition — Smoot's 
Responsibility — Law  Student  and  Representative — Ann  Rutledge,  "Loved 
and  Lost"— "Oh,  Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal  Be  Proud  ?"— "Ev'ry 
Time  He'd  Talk  'bout  Her  He  Cried" — Candidate  Lincoln  "Shows  His 
Hand"— Forquer's  Lightning-rod— What  He  Did  While  His  Rival 
Milked — Taylor's  "Bloated  Aristocracy"' — The  "Long  Nine"  and  the  Re- 
moval of  the  Capital — The  "Prime  Mover"  of  the  Capital — Lincoln  the 
Pettifogger — Settled  out  of  Court — Banquets  and  Toasts — Leaving 
New  Salem. 

Chapter  VI     • 
" The  Law  and  the  Lady" 143 

Stories: — Moving  to  Springfield — Stuart  &  Lincoln — The  Affair  with 
Mary  Owens — $30,000.00  "without  a  Scratch  of  the  Pen" — How  Badde- 
ley  Was  Deceived — Lincoln  and  Douglas  Twenty  Years  before — Comes 
down  through  the  Ceiling  and  Demands  Free  Speech — "I  Never  Use 
Any  Man's  Money"— "Which  Will  You  Take  ?"— Champion  of  the  Op- 
pressed— "Nominal  Winner  the  Real  Loser" — Mary  Todd  and  Her  Two 
Suitors — Description  of  Miss  Todd — "Should  Like  to  Dance  the  Worst 
Way" — In  Behalf  of  Jefferson  the  Actor — Offers  to  Pay  Half  Damages 
Caused  by  His  Funny  Stories — In  the  "Log  Cabin"  Campaign — Drew 
the  Line  at  Stealing  Hens — His  Strength  and  Courage — Childlike  Ten- 
derness— "The  Worst  of  It  in  a  Horse  Trade  !" — As  Lawyer  and  Temper- 
ance Man^The  Proper  Length  for  a  Man's  Legs — The  Broken  Engage- 
ment, Mystery  and  Misery — An  Untrue  Story — Mary  Todd's  Cousin 
Says,  "No!"— "I  Do  Not  Believe  a  Word  of  It!"— "No  Truth  in  It!"— 
What  Lincoln  Did  With  His  First  $500.00  Fee — Successful  Appeal  to 
Rustic  Prejudice — Logan  &  Lincoln — "I  Should  Forget  Myself  and  Say 
It  out  Loud" — Trivial  Background  for  His  Wit — Charity  in  Temper- 
ance Reform — "Rebecca"  of  the  "Lost  Townships" — An  Absurd  Duel 
Avoided — Not  the  Slightest  Intention  of  Injuring  Shields — "Killing  the 
Dog  Would  Not  Cure  the  Bite" — Married  after  Misunderstandings — 
"The  Statute  Fixes  All  That!"— "His  Heart  Is  as  Large  as  His  Arms 
Arc  Long." 

Chapter  VII 

In  Politics  and  Congress 181 

Stories: — Lincoln  Declines  Support  for  Governor  of  Illinois — Making  Van 
Buren  Laugh  "Till  His  Sides  Were  Sore" — Visits  Indiana  Home  Mak- 
ing Speeches  for  Henry  Clay — Verses  about  His  Old  Home — Elected 
to  Congress — "Can  Compress  the  Most  Words  into  the  Smallest  Ideas" — 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Lincoln  to  the  House,  Douglas  to  the  Senate— Autobiography  for  the 
Congressional  Directory — Visits  Henry  Clay — "No  Vices  and  Blamed 
Few  Virtues  !" — Congressman  Lincoln's  Bill — The  Mexican  War  and  the 
"Spot  Resolutions" — Champion  Story  Teller  of  the  Capitol — Legal  Ser- 
vices Rendered  Daniel  Webster — "My  Old  Eyes  Are  Full  of  Tears 
Yet!" — General  Cass  on  Working  and  Eating — "The  Upshot  of  This 
Comet  Business" — In  the  Thirtieth  Congress  and  Afterwards — Sees 
Niagara  Falls — Lincoln's  Patent  for  Buoying  Vessels  over  River  Shoals. 

Chapter  VIII 
State  Capital  and  Eighth  Circuit 203 

Stories: — "A  Place  for  Everything" — "Giving  away  What  He  Couldn't 
Keep" — How  Lincoln  Retaliated  on  Opposing  Counsel — Studying  Eu- 
clid and  Telling  Stories — "The  Ogmathorial  Court"  and  "Catchem  & 
Cheatem" — "If  I'm  Uglier  Than  You  I  Don't  Want  to  Live !" — Lawyer 
Lincoln  Rescues  a  Pig — "A  Seven-foot  Whistle  on  a  Five-foot 
Boiler" — "I  Cannot  Argue  This  Case,  Our  Witnesses  Have  Been 
Lying" — An  Illustrious  Pillow  Fight — A  Rating  Not  in  "Dun"  or 
"Bradstreet" — How  He  Fared  on  the  Circuit — Mrs.  Lincoln  Sur- 
prises Her  Husband — "The  Story  Was  Worth  the  Money!" — Never 
a  Clown  or  Court  Jester— "Why  Didn't  You  Go  at  Him  With  the  Other 
End  ?"— "Lincoln,  I  Thought  You  Was  a  Lawyer !"— "He  Never  Put  No 
Meanin'  into  'em"— "Fairly  Entitled"  to  the  Prize— "Tell  the  Judge 
My  Hands  Are  Dirty" — "Try  Your  Hand  at  Making  $600.00  in  Some 
Other  Way"— "Trusted  Providence  Till  the  Britchin'  Broke"— "Skin 
Defendant.  Close"— "We  Never  Kill  Less"— "Don't  Shoot  Too  High"— 
"Abe's  Got  That  Fool  Idee  in  His  Head" — Masterful  Kindness  to  His 
Stepbrother — "He  Will  Not  Forget  the  Dying  Man" — Death  of  Thomas 
Lincoln — Defends  His  Stepmother  from  Her  Own  Son — Always  Glad 
to  See  and  Help^  His  "Poor  Relations"— "Why,  Aunt's  Heart  Would  Be 
Broken!"— The  "Pink-and- White  Runaway"— Had  to  Withdraw  the 
"Colt"— "The  Matter  with  the  Whole  World"— "It  Was  Just  Like 
Him !" — In  the  Court-room  and  at  Home — "Mr.  Lincoln  Was  the  Most 
Loving  Husband  and  Father  in  the  World." 

Chapter  IX 
Enters  Politics  Again 237 

Stories: — Evolution  of  a  Great  Idea  in  Lincoln's  Mind — Returns  to  Poli- 
tics after  the  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise — "Bleeding  Kansas" — 
John  Brown  of  Osawatomie — "The  Power  of  Hope" — "A  Question  of 
Interest"— "The  Most  Stupid  Slave  Knows"— The  Peoria  Speech— "The 
State  versus  Mr.  Whiskey" — "These  Boys  Would  Never  Have  Tried 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

to  Cheat" — Railroad,  Repudiating  $2,000.00,  Pays  $5,000.00 — Herndon's 
Half — First  Meeting  of  Lincoln  and  Stanton — Why  Lincoln  Was  a 
"Dangerous  Man" — Lincoln's  "Lost  Speech" — The  Speech  as  After- 
ward Reproduced — "That  Speech  Puts  Lincoln  on  the  Track  for  the 
Presidency" — Playing  a  Prank  When  He  Heard  of  His  Votes  for  Vice- 
President — "A  Prophet  without  Honor  in  His  Own  City." 

Chapter  X 
The  Battles  of  the  Giants 258 

Stories: — First  and  Only  Choice  of  Republicans  of  Illinois — Locking  Horns 
for  the  "Irrepressible  Conflict" — The  Great  Rock  Island  Bridge  Case — 
Lawyer  Lincoln's  Letter  to  Hannah  Armstrong — Saved  by  Lincoln  with 
an  Almanac — Lawyer's  Account  of  the  Great  Armstrong  Trial — Douglas 
Accepts  Lincoln's  Challenge — Dates  of  the  Seven  Debates — "Smelt  No 
Royalty  in  Our  Carriage" — Average  of  10,000  at  Each  Debate — At 
Havana,  Illinois — "Let  Me  Entreat  You  to  Come  Back !" — First  Great 
Debate  at  Ottawa,  Illinois— "Hold  My  Coat  While  I  Stone  Stephen  !"— 
A  Good  Humored  Retort — "Nasby"  Contrasts  Lincoln  and  Douglas — 
Discussing  the  Dred  Scott  Decision — Conference  over  Lincoln's  Pro- 
posed Questions — "Battle  of  i860  Worth  a  Hundred  of  This" — Second 
Debate,  at  Freeport — "Thinness"  of  Douglas's  Sophism — Douglas  Falls 
into  Lincoln's  Trap — "It's  Too  Big  a  Thing  for  You !" — McClellan  with 
Douglas  against  Lincoln — "You  Can't  Disprove  a  Proposition  by  Call- 
ing Euclid  a  Liar" — Douglas  Like  a  Cuttlefish — How  Lincoln  Shook  a 
Witness — "The  Judge  on  the  Wrong  Side  of  the  Bar" — "Just  Before 
the  Battle"  at  Quincy— Sixth  Joint  Debate— "A  Chance  to  Breathe"— 
The  Last  Debate,  at  Alton — Senator  Trumbull  in  the  Campaign — 
"Hurt  Too  Bad  to  Laugh  and  Too  Big  to  Cry"— "No  Bar'l  of  Money" 
for  Lincoln  in  That  Campaign — "It  Gave  Me  a  Hearing" — Parallel  Ca- 
reers of  Lincoln  and  Douglas — Called  to  Speak  in  Kansas  and  Ohio — 
What  Was  Gained  by  Making  the  Contest. 

Chapter  XI 

Widening  Renown 299 

Stories: — Speaking  in  Ohio — Another  Great  Murder  Trial — "Bucking"  of 
the  Chess-board — John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry — Orator  at  Wisconsin 
Fair — How  He  Came  to  Lecture  at  Cooper  Institute — Stranger  at 
the  Five  Points  Mission — The  Cooper  Institute  Speech — What  It  Was 
About — Defends  the  Republicans  from  the  Charge  of  Complicity  with 
John  Brown — "The  Greatest  Man  Since  St.  Paul !" — Speaking  in  New 
England — "What's  the  Use  of  Talking  of  Me  for  the  Presidency?" — "I 
Do  Not  Think  I'm  Fit  for  the  Presidency" — How  the  Rails  Were 
Brought  in— A  "Dismal"  Portrait  That  "Put  an  End  to  Hope." 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  XII 


PAGE 


Candidate  for  President 317 

Stories:— "CarXcion"  Tells  of  Thurlow  Weed  and  "the  Mob"— "I  Author- 
ize No  Bargains" — How  Lincoln  Was  Nominated — A  Woman's  Descrip- 
tion of  the  Nomination — The  Candidate  Receives  the  News — A  Neigh- 
bor's Incredulity — Committee  Formally  Informs  Mr.  Lincoln — The 
Speeches  and  Lincoln's  Letter  of  Acceptance — Positions  of  the  Three 
Great  Parties — Lincoln's  Own  Life-Story — "A  Real  Representative 
Man" — "We  Are  Going  to  Have  Some  New  Clothes" — The  Wide- 
Awakes  of  i860 — A  Newsboy's  Apology — A  Call  on  Candidate  Lin- 
coln— Lincoln-Hamlin  Anagrams — The  Great  Springfield  Convention — 
"They  Have  Not  Read  Their  Bibles  Aright"— Election  Day— "Mary, 
Mary!  We  Are  Elected!" 

Chapter  XIII 

As  President-Elect 346 

Stories: — Begins  "Cabinet  Making" — Elected  but  Helpless — "Artemus 
Ward"  Visits  the  "President  Eleck"— Daily  "Levees"— An  Optical 
Omen — Hard  Time  with  Office-seekers — A  Little  Girl  Induces  Lincoln 
to  Grow  a  Beard — Choosing  a  Secretary — Trade  Reasons  Against  War — 
News  Item  from  a  Springfield  Paper — How  Buchanan's  Cabinet  Planned 
to  Wreck  the  Government — President's  Duty  "to  Run  the  Machine 
as  It  Is" — "Latitude  and  Longitude,"  "Socks  and  Flapjacks" — Corre- 
spondence with  A.  H.  Stephens — The  Three  Staunch  Democrats  in  Bu- 
chanan's Cabinet — Seven  Southern  Sisters  Secede — Stormy  Session  of 
Buchanan's  Cabinet — Why  Did  the  South  Secede? — Farewell  to  His 
Old  Stepmother — "Buchanan  Is  Giving  the  Case  away." 

Chapter  XIV 

The  Journey  to  Washington 372 

Stories: — Farewell  to  Springfield  Friends — On  the  Way  to  Washington — 
Cincinnati,  Columbus,  Pittsburg  and  Cleveland — Lincoln  and  the  Coal- 
heaver — Gives  Tad  a  "Good  Spanking" — New  York  State  and  City — 
At  Trenton,  New  Jersey — At  Independence  Hall  on  Washington's 
Birthday — Why  He  Passed  Through  Baltimore  in  the  Night — How 
Robert  Lost  the  Inaugural  Address — A  Railroad  Official's  Letter — Un- 
expectedly Met  in  Washington — Chaotic  Condition  of  the  Government. 

Chapter  XV 
At  the  Helm  of  State 384 

Stories: — The  Morning  before  the  Inauguration — The  Inaugural  Address — 
Horace   Greeley's   Opinion — At   the   Head  of  the   Crumbling   Govern- 


CONTENTS 


ment — New  President's  First  Perplexity — "Some  Thoughts  for  the 
President's  Consideration" — A  Plain  but  Kind  Reproof — Confederate 
Commissioners  and  "the  Gage  of  Battle" — Instructions  to  Commander 
at  Fort  Sumter — "The  Slickest  Glass  Hack  in  Town" — Bombardment 
and  Surrender  of  Fort  Sumter — "A  Live  Coal  on  the  Heart  of  the 
American  People" — First  Call  for  7S,ooo  Men — Virginia  Secedes  and 
Seizes  Harper's  Ferry — Patriots'  Day,  1861 — Maryland  Protests — Room 
to  Bury  75,000 — "Why  Don't  They  Come !" — Another  Call  for  Sol- 
diers— Robert  E.  Lee's  Account  of  the  Offer  of  Command  of  Union 
Army — Mild  Measures  and  How  They  Were  Received — "Renting 
Rooms  While  the  House  Is  On  Fire" — How  Good  Boston  People 
Looked  upon  Lincoln — "Undertaking  to  Frighten  the  Devil  with  Cold 
Pitch" — A  Courteous  Repulse — Douglas's  Warning — Last  Time  Lincoln 
Ever  Saw  Douglas — "I  Don't  Care,  if  You  Will  Fight  for  the  Country" — 
"No  Other  Nations  'Sneakin'  'round' " — "I  Guess  Mary  Will  Have 
Something  for  Us  to  Eat"— "The  People  Will  Understand.' 

Chapter  XVI 
Defiance,  Disaster,  Sorrow 415 

Stories: — News  of  the  First  Battle  of  Bull  Run — "This  Nation  Should 
Be  on  the  Lord's  Side" — "Death-bed  Repentance  a  Big  Thing !" — 
Stanton's  Early  Abuse  of  the  President — "I  Believe  He  Would  Do 
It!"— "You  Can't  Fool  All  the  People  All  the  Time"— "Darn  You! 
Who  Commenced  This  Fuss?" — "There  Is  a  Man  in  Here!" — "Sugar- 
Coated"  in  a  Message — "I  Think  I  Can  Beat  You  Both" — What  Lincoln 
Liked  to  Eat— "Whose  Boots  Do  They  Black?"— Only  Times  He  Seemed 
Happy — "Blunt  as  a  Meat-ax  and  Keen  as  a  Razor" — "You  Are 
Spoiling  the  Bust !" — John  C.  Fremont's  Assumptions  of  Authority — 
Death  of  Colonel  Baker  at  Ball's  Bluff- "There  Is  Meat  in  That,  Gen- 
eral"—The  "Trent"  AfTair  and  Its  "White  Elephants"— "Wilkes  Had 
No  Right!" — "Sumner  Thinks  He  Runs  Me" — Cameron,  Secretary  of 
War,  Sent  to  Russia— Cabinet  Ministers  and  Skunks— Stanton  Made 
War  Secretary — How  Newspaper  Stories  Grow — The  White  House  a 
House  of  Mourning, 

Chapter  XVII 
Lincoln  and  McClellan 439 

Stories: — "Some  Strange  Operation  of  Magic" — "Enough  to  Tax  the 
Patience  of  Job !"— Lincoln  Studies  Strategy — McClellan's  Account- 
President's  First  General  War  Order— "Masterly  Inactivity"  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac— "I  Would  Find  Means  to  Prevent  the  'Merri- 
mac'"— His  Unwavering  Confidence  in  the  "Monitor"— President's  De- 


8  CONTENTS 


PAGB 

light  at  the  Victory  of  the  "Monitor"— The  Country's  Debt  to  Lincoln  for 
the  "Monitor's"  Success — Lincoln's  Intercession  for  a  Faithful  Officer — 
Fiasco  at  Harper's  Ferry — "I  Could  Permit  No  One  to  Couple  'Treason' 
with  My  Name" — "A  Convenient  Mistake  of  Stanton's" — How  Vallan- 
dingham  Hampered  the  President — "All  Quiet  along  the  Potomac" — "I 
Will  Hold  McCIellan's  Horse"— "Special  Talent  for  a  Stationary  En- 
gine"— McClellan  and  the  Peninsular  Campaign — How  the  Retreat 
Looked  from  the  South — "I  Should  Like  to  Borrow  the  Army  for  a 
Day  or  Two" — Why  Antietam  Was  a  Drawn  Battle — McClellan  Re- 
called after  Being  Dismissed— McClellan  and  "Bap"  McNabb's  Little 
Red  Rooster— "McCIellan's  Bid  for  the  Presidency." 

Chapter  XVIII 
The  Emancipation  Proclamation 474 

Stories: — "Compensated  Emancipation"  Defeated  in  Delaware — A  Little 
Conundrum — Writing  the  Emancipation  Proclamation — "A  Divine  Mes- 
sage by  Way  of  Chicago !" — Lincoln's  Own  Story  about  the  Proclama- 
tion— Stanton's  Story  of  the  First  Reading — "I  See  No  Reason  What- 
ever!"— "Accuse  Not  a  Servant  unto  His  Master" — The  Sleeping 
Sentinel — "Why  Don't  You  Go  at  Him  with  a  'Capias'  or  a  'Surre- 
butter' ?" — "No  Respecter  of  Persons" — Suitable  Inscription  for  Green- 
backs— Defeat  at  Fredericksburg — Suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus — 
"Help  Me  Let  This  Hog  Go !" — Signing  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion— Emancipation  "Very  Like  a  Whale" — The  Emancipation  Group. 

Chapter  XIX 

"The  Burden  and  Heat  of  the  Day" 494 

Stories: — He  Was  Beset  by  Day  and  by  Night — Fredericksburg  and  Antie- 
tam Compared— "I  Must  Bear  This  Load  and  Do  My  Best"— "Will- 
ingly Would  I  Exchange  Places  with  the  Soldier !" — "Something  That 
Everybody  Can  Take" — "In  the  Silent  Midnight  Watches" — "Lincoln 
Gave  Me  the  Worst  Fright  of  My  Life!"— "If  There's  a  Man  out  of 
Hell  That  Suffers  More  Than  I  Do !"— The  President  and  the  Wounded 
Boy — Contrast  between  Lincoln  and  Stanton — "Go  Thou  and  Do  Like- 
wise"—"Nothing  Touches  the  Tired  Spot"— "I  Am  Only  a  Retail 
Dealer"  in  Stories— "If  Anybody  Wants  to  Kill  Me  He  Will  Do  It"— 
"Handsome  Is  That  Handsome  Does"— "Yet  Aaron  Got  His  Com- 
mission"—A  Guarded  Offer  to  "Nasby"— "Oh,  What  Will  the  Country 
Say!" — The  Night  after  Chancellorsville— Tad's  Innocent  Question- 
Wise  Military  Suggestions  to  Hooker — "Bail  out  the  Potomac  with  a 
Teaspoon !"— Frederick  Douglass  Calls  on  the  President— "I  Can  Bear 
Censure,  but  Not  Insult"— "I'm  Not  Going  to  Open  Shop  Here !"— Two 


CONTENTS 


Applications  for  Pardon — "Tell  Me  That  Horse's  Points" — His  Own 
Reasons  for  Telling  His  Stories — A  Bullet  through  His  Hat  One  Dark 
Night — "Stanton's  Nearly  Always  Right !" — Like  a  Tight-rope  Walker 
with  a  Man  on  His  Back— "For  God's  Sake,  Don't  Ask  Me!"— "This 
War  is  Killing  Me!" — Billy  Brown  Goes  to  Washington  Just  to  See 
Mr.  Lincoln. 

Chapter  XX 
Lincoln  and  Gettysburg 52" 

Stories: — Lee's  Invasion  of  Pennsylvania — The  Battle  of  Gettysburg — "My 
God!  Is  That  AH?"— Why  He  Was  Not  So  Anxious— Goldwin  Smith 
and  "Darky  Arithmetic" — Recommending  a  Colonel  for  a  Colored  Regi- 
ment— "I  Don't  Belie\"e  Shooting  Will  Do  Him  Any  Good" — Conscrip- 
tion Bill  and  the  Draft  Riot — The  Quaker  and  the  Draft — Dennis  Hanks 
Advises  "Abe''  to  "Spank"  Stanton — Humor  of  the  Soldiers — "No 
Influence  with  This  Administration" — The  Governor  and  the  Squeal- 
ing Boy — Lincoln's  Usual  "Swear-Word" — "I  'Ploughed  around'  That 
Governor  for  'Three  Mortal  Hours' !" — First  Great  Sanitary  Fair  at 
Chicago — "Nasby"  Has  an  Interview  with  the  President — Invited  to 
Speak  at  Gettysburg — Gettysburg  Speech  to  be  "Short,  Short,  Short !" — 
On  the  Way  to  Gettysburg — President  and  Party  at  Gettysburg — An 
Imperfect  Tribute — Stanton's  Opinion  of  the  Gettysburg  Speech. 

Chapter  XXI 

Lincoln  and  Grant 554 

Stories:— "I  Can't  Spare  This  Man,  He  Fights"— "You  Were  Right  and 
I  Was  Wrong" — Pemberton's  Army  Like  Sykes's  Yellow  Dog — Statue 
of  Liberty  and  Grant's  Whiskey — Distress  over  "Niggers"  with  "Jig- 
gers"— '''He  Cares  for  Us  Soldiers" — "No  Man's  Shoulders  Are  Broad 
Enough"' — Judge  Holt  and  Lincoln's  "Leg  Cases" — "Butler  or  No 
Butler,  Here  Goes  !" — The  Amnesty  Proclamation — "Going  into  Eter- 
nity with  That  Blood  on  My  Skirts !" — Burning  of  the  White  House 
Stables— "I  Will  Be  Far  Happier  Than  Here"— "More  Light  and  Less 
Noise" — First  Meeting  of  Lincoln  and  Grant — The  Military  Situation 
and  the  Monkey  with  Too  Much  Tail — Visit  to  City  Point — England 
and  the  Sangamon  Barber — "That  Old  Grudge  Stands !" — "I  Will  Make 
a  Fizzle  Anyhow"— "Is  This  Bloody  War  Ever  to  End?"— "How  Un- 
fortunate !  Those  Mules  Cost  $200.00  Apiece" — "There  Won't  Be  Any 
Fun  Till  I  Get  There !"— The  President's  Narrow  Escape— "I  Will 
Keep  My  Part  of  the  Bargain"— "Would  to  God  This  Dinner  Were 
with  Our  Poor  Prisoners !" — "Brother"  Greeley  as  Peace  Commis- 
sioner— Lincoln's  Sublime  Confidence  in  Grant — The  President  in  the 
Streets  of  the  Capital — Lincoln's  War  Despatches — Tad's  Tantrum — 


lo  CONTENTS 


PAOE 

"Madam  Knew  Nothing  of  Him  Whatever" — A  Whimsical  Excuse  for 
Granting  a  Pardon — Mrs.  Bixby's  Three  Sons  Return  as  from  the 
Dead. 

Chapter  XXII 
Renominated,  Elected,  Inaugurated 586 

Stories: — "When  the  Presidential  'Grub'  Gets  Inside  of  a  Man!" — How 
Secretary  Chase  Took  Advantage — "Never  Get  between  the  Woman's 
Skillet  and  the  Man's  Ax-helve" — "Easier  Than  to  Raise  Another 
Million  Soldiers" — "I  Should  Have  Done  the  Same  Fool  Thing" — 
"Mr.  Secretary,  It  Will  Have  To  Be  Done!" — The  Poems  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes— Will  the  Negro  Soldier  Fight?— "Medill,  You  Are 
Acting  Like  a  Coward" — The  Enemy's  Strength  Overestimated — "How 
Clean  You  Shave !" — Forty  Falsehoods  to  One  Fact — "Glad  of  the 
Chance  to  Finish  This  Big  Job"— Confederates,  Not  "Rebels"— "The 
Fremont  Convention  and  the  Cave  of  Adullam — "They  Might  Have 
Made  a  Botch  of  It" — How  the  President  Heard  of  His  Renomina- 
tion — "I'm  the  Longest  but  McClellan's  Better  Looking" — "I've  Lost 
My  Apple  Overboard !" — "Free  from  Any  Taint  of  Personal  Tri- 
umph"— "Together  We  Can  Make  Two  Loyal  Fathers  Happy" — 
"Long  Abraham"  Four  Years  Longer — Grant's  Congratulations — "A 
Pretty  Mess  You've  Got  Me  into !" — Lincoln's  Attention  to  Children — 
The  "Man  Down  South"  and  Some  Offenders— "Want  to  Know  All 
about  Sherman's  Raid?"— "A  Useful  Little  Chap"— Sherman's  "Christ- 
mas Gift"  to  the  Country — Lieutenant  Tad — Lincoln  and  Three  "Soldier 
Boys" — The  Hampton  Roads  Conference — An  Unfortunate  Precedent — 
Lincoln  Still  Willing  to  Buy  the  Slaves— "It  Was  the  Baby  That  Did 
It" — Orders  a  Well  Pumped  out  for  Tad — The  Second  Inaugural — 
A  Sunburst — Chase  Holds  the  Book  as  Douglas  Held  Lincoln's  Hat. 

Chapter  XXIII 
The  End  of  the  War 618 

Stories: — After  the  Inaugural  Ceremonies — Anna  Dickinson  and  the  Sun- 
beam— Sewing  a  Button  on  His  Trousers — "There  Was  Such  a  Charm 
about  His  Expression" — Sumner  Tells  of  Lincoln's  Love  for  the  "Nasby 
Letters" — A  Great  Wrong  to  Lincoln's  Memory — Advises  Stanton  about 
a  Wrathful  Letter— "God  Bless  the  Women !"— "Nothing  Like  Getting 
Used  to  Things" — Grant  Captures  Richmond  and  Intercepts  Lee — "I  Am 
Troubled  about  the  Negroes" — Strange  Triumphal  Entry — At  the  "White 
House  of  the  Confederacy" — "The  End  Has  Almost  Come !" — Return- 
ing from  City  Point — How  Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet  Received  the  News 
of    Lee's    Surrender — "The    President's    Life-preserver" — Behind    the 


CONTENTS  II 


Scenes  at  a  White  House  Serenade — From  Lincoln's  Last  Speech — 
Lincoln's  Last  Telegram — Secretary  Stoddard  Takes  His  Last  Leave  of 
President  Lincoln. 

Chapter  XXIV 

Lincoln's  Last  Day 63  7 

Stories: — The  Morning  of  That  Fateful  Day — "What  a  Pity  We  Have  to  Fight 
Such  a  Gallant  Fellow !" — Dickens's  Story  of  That  Last  Cabinet  Meet- 
ing— "Well  Done,  Good  and  Faithful  Servants !" — The  Afternoon 
Drive — Lincoln's  Last  Official  Acts — "It's  Best  to  Let  Him  Run" — 
Goes  to  the  Theater  Not  to  Disappoint  People — Last  Story  and  Last 
Writing — Tragedy  Described  by  Eye- Witness — Hov^^  the  Awful  Crime 
Was  Committed — Pandemonium  in  the  Theater — "They  Have  Killed 
Papa  Dead !" — The  Flickering  Light  Goes  Out. 

CHAPTER  XXV 
The  World  in  Mourning 657 

Stories: — "O  Captain !  My  Captain !" — "Don't  Cry  So,  Mamma,  You  Will 
Break  My  Heart !" — How  Greeley  Was  Saved  from  Making  a  Brutal 
Attack  on  the  Dying  President — Richmond  Receives  News  of  the  Assas- 
sination— "He  Was  Never  Happy  Here !" — "I  Thought  It  Strange  the 
Stars  Could  Shine" — Wilkes  Booth's  Morbid  Craving — The  Funeral  in 
Washington — "Massa  Sam's  Dead,  O  Lord !" — Rewards  Offered  for 
Apprehension  of  the  Assassins — Bryant's  Funeral  Ode — Booth  Shot  in  a 
Burning  Barn— The  Burial  at  Springfield— Tributes  to  His  Great- 
ness— An  Astonishing  Contrast — Tragic  Fate  of  Five  in  Box  That 
Awful  Night — Fate  of  the  Assassins  and  Others — "Most  Christlike  Mortal 
That  Ever  Wielded  Power"— Real  Sorrow  in  the  South— End  of 
Mrs.  Lincoln's  Broken  Life— Popular  Sympathy  in  Canada — What 
the  English  People  Thought— Tributes  in  High  Places— "Seeking  to 
Conquer,  Not  Persons,  but  Prejudices"— Emerson's  Review  of  Lin- 
coln's Career — Abraham  Lincoln,  "The  First  American." 

Short  Sayings  of  Abraham  Lincoln 680 

Index 687 

Special  Acknowledgments 703 


«. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


SPECIAL   ENGRAVINGS   ON   TINTED    PAPER 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Sixteenth  President  of  the  United  States Frontispiece 

KilHng  of  Lincohi's  Grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln Opposite  Page  17 

Lincoln  at  the  Slave  Market  in  New  Orleans 83 

Captain  Lincoln  Defending  the   Indian    lOl 

Earliest  Portrait  of  Abraham  Lincoln   191 

Edwin  M.  Stanton   249 

Stephen  A.  Douglas 265 

The  Cooper  Institute  Portrait  of  Lincoln   307 

Mrs.  Mary  Todd  Lincoln  in  the  White  House  400 

Decisive  Engagement  between  the  "Monitor"  and  the  "Merrimac" 450 

First  Reading  of  the  Emancipation   Proclamation  to  the    Cabinet    (one  of  the 

only  photo-engravings  reproduced  direct  from  Carpenter's  great  painting) . .  482 

The  Bombardment  of  Fredericksburg 486 

President  Lincoln  and  His  Family,  in  the  White  House   526 

Facsimiles  of  Two  Letters  Written  by  Abraham  Lincoln  588 

Reception  in  the  East  Room,  Early  in  1865  606 

A  Favorite  Portrait  of  Lincoln  and  "Tad"  610 

ILLUSTRATIONS   IN   TEXT 

"From  Prairie  Cabin  up  to  Capitol,"  Vignette  page  vi 

•Facsimile  Autograph x 

Jesse  Head,  the  Methodist  Minister  20 

Cabin  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  Was  Born  22 

Dennis  Hanks,  Lincoln's  Cousin  and  Playmate 24 

Map  Showing  Removals  of  the  Lincoln  Family  31 

The  Second  House  in  Indiana 33 

Abe's   Ax    34 

The  Belated  Funeral  Sermon   37 

Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  Abraham's  Stepmother  43 

A  Leaf  from  Abraham's  Home-made  Arithmetic  46 

Josiah  Crawford   ("Old  Blue-Nose")    52 

The  Crawford  Farm-house  where  Abe  and  His  Sister  Worked  58 

Lying  on  his  Stomach  in  Front  of  the  Fireplace   61 

John  Hanks,  who  Helped  the  Lincolns  Build  Their  First  Cabin  in  Illinois 72 

The  First  Home  in  Illinois,  Once  Surrounded  by  the  Historic  Walnut  Rails.  75 

(13) 


14  J-JST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


^u« 


Lincoln  Wrestles  with  Needham,  the  County  Champion  page    85 

Mentor  Graham,  Who  Helped  Lincoln  in  Grammar  and  Surveying 86 

Abe  Throws  Jack  Armstrong,  the  Clary's  Grove  Bully  88 

Clerking  in  Offutt's  Store 90 

The  Victim  (Estep)   Appeared  94 

Studying  Law  in  Berry  &  Lincoln's  Store  113 

Maj.  John  T.  Stuart,  Who  Encouraged  Lincoln  and  Took  him  into  Partnership  115 

Andrew  Jackson    119 

Facsimile  of  a  Survey  by  Lincoln  as  Deputy  Surveyor Full  Page  120 

"Abe  Would  Come  to  Our  House,  Tell  Stories  and  Joke  People" 123 

Grave  of  Ann  Rutledge,  Lincoln's  "Loved  and  Lost" 130 

Ninian  W.  Edwards,  Lincoln's  Friend  and.  Later,  His  Brother-in-law  137 

The  Old  State  Capitol  of  Illinois,  at  Vandalia   139 

Mary  S.  Owens   145 

Facsimile  of  Page  of  Lincoln's  Handwriting  in  Stuart  &  Lincoln's  Charge  Book.   148 

William  Henry  Harrison    158 

John  Tyler   159 

Joshua  F.  Speed,  Lincoln's  Most  Intimate  Friend,  and  His  Wife 160 

Mrs.  Ninian  W.  Edwards,  afterwards  Lincoln's  Sister-in-law  167 

Globe  Tavern,  in  which  Lincoln  and  His  Wife  Began  Life  together.  .Full  Page  179 

Martin  Van  Buren   , 182 

Peter  Cartwright,  the  Eccentric  Pioneer  Preacher 185 

Henry  Clay,  in  His  Home  at  Ashland,  Kentucky 187 

James  K.  Polk 192 

Daniel    Webster    193 

General  Zachary  Taylor 197 

Model  of  Lincoln's  Invention  for  Buoying  Vessels  over  River  Shoals 201 

Lincoln's  Desk-Bookcase  and  Chair  Full  Page  204 

Facsimile  of  Label  Written  by  Lincoln  for  a  Package  of  Papers  205 

Lincoln's  Saddle-bags 211 

Leonard  Swett,  a  Lawyer-friend  on  the  Eighth  Circuit  212 

Judge  David  Davis,  Judge  on  the  Eighth  Circuit 213' 

Lincoln's  Home  in  Springfield,  Illinois   217 

Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Author  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  218 

Stephen  A.  Douglas 222 

Interior  of  Lincoln's  Father's  Last  Home  in  Illinois  224 

House  in  which  Thomas  Lincoln  Died  227 

Millard  Fillmore 232 

Lincoln,  the  "Plain,  Country  Lawyer" Full  Page  234 

John  Brown  in  the  Days  of  the  Struggles  in  Kansas 239 

Franklin  Pierce  242 

Etched  Portrait  of  Lincoln  245 

Etched  Portrait  of  Lincoln  246 

Etching  of  Lincoln  when  He  First  Met  Stanton  248 

Lincoln  in  1856  when  He  Made  "the  Lost  Speech" 251 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  15 

Etching  from  Photograph  Taken  the  Same  Year  ( 1856) page  253 

Etched  Portrait  Made  a  Year  Later  254 

Lincoln  in  1857,  the  Earliest  Portrait  to  be  Widely  Published  257 

Norman  B.  Judd   261 

A  Lincoln-Douglas  Debate   Full  Page  274 

George  B.  McClellan  in  1858,  Vice-President  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad 284 

Lincoln  as  He  Looked  during  the  Great  Debates  with  Douglas 287 

Lincoln  in  1859,  from  Mrs.  Lincoln's  Favorite  Photograph Full  Page  296 

John  Brown,  Wounded  and  a  Prisoner,  at  Harper's  Ferry Full  Page  302 

Lincoln,  later  in  '59 304 

Lincoln  in  i860,  while  Candidate  for  President Full  Page  314 

The  Wigwam  at  Chicago  Full  Page  319 

Richard  Yates  325 

Etching  from  Lincoln's  First  Widely  Published  Portrait  335 

The  Old  State  Capitol  of  Illinois  336 

William  H.  Seward   Full  Page  344 

"A  Job  for  the  New  Cabinet  Maker."     One  of  the  Earliest  Cartoons  of  Lincoln.  346 

James  Buchanan 358 

Robert  Toombs  365 

Jefferson  Davis  when  Elected  President  of  the  Confederacy  367 

Capitol  of  the  Confederacy,  Montgomery,  Alabama Full  Page  368 

Lincoln  in  His  Inauguration  Suit,  Early  in  1861  Full  Page  371 

Railroad  Station  at  which  Lincoln  Delivered  His  Farewell  to  Springfield 372 

Abraham  Lincoln  Delivering  His  First  Inaugural  Address  Full  Page  387 

Colonel  Henry  Watterson  392 

The  Capitol  of  the  Confederacy  at  Richmond,  Virginia  Full  Page  399 

"The  White  House"  of  the  Confederacy Full  Page  403 

Facsimile  from  Constitution  of  the  Confederate  States  of  America. ..  .Full  Page  405 

Profile  Portrait  of  Lincoln,  with  Beard,  in  1861   413 

First  Battle  of  Bull  Run Full  Page  416 

Facsimile  Card.    From  Original  in  the  Collection  of  Judd  Stewart,  Esq 421 

General  Winfield  Scott 424 

Lincoln  in  1861,  from  One  of  the  First  Photographs  with  a  Beard. ..  .Full  Page  428 

Etching  of  Lincoln  in  '62 433 

Willie  Lincoln,  from  a  Rare  Photograph  Taken  while  Living  in  the  White  House  437 

President  Lincoln  at  General  McClellan's  Headquarters  443 

Chauncey  M.  Depew  447 

John  Ericsson- 448 

Lincoln  in  '62.     Vignette 454 

The  President  at  McClellan's  Headquarters,  after  Antietam Full  Page  467 

The  Secretary  of  War  Advocating  an  Aggressive  Policy Full  Page  470 

Equestrian  Statue  of  General  McClellan  473 

Lincoln  in  a  Meditative  Mood 477 

Before  Fredericksburg   487 

Itmancipation  Group,  Florence,  Italy , , , Full  Page  493 


1 6  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Wendell   Phillips    page  495 

Bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  by  the  Union  Fleet,  1863 Full  Page  503 

Thaddeus  Stevens 507 

The  Battle  of  Chancellorsville  Full  Page  509 

General  Thomas  J.  ("Stonewall")  Jackson 511 

Tad  Lincoln,  in  "Citizen's  Clothes"  513 

Mrs.  Mary  A.  Livermore,  Army  Nurse  and  Member  of  Sanitary  Commission.  .   518 
A  Popular  Portrait  of  Lincoln  because  on  Bank  Notes  and  Postage  Stamps. ..  .  525 

General  Robert  E.  Lee  528 

General  George  G.  Meade 530 

Edward  Everett 546 

Facsimiles  of  the  Gettysburg  Address  in  Lincoln's  Writing.  .Two  Full  Pages  549,  550 

Lieutenant-General  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant Full  Page  553 

The  Capitol  at  Washington  with  Dome  at  Last  Completed Full  Page  558 

Facsimile  of  Card  Written  by  President  Lincoln  559 

Facsimile  of  Note  Written  by  Lincoln  to  Stanton 561 

General  Grant,  from  a  War-time  Photograph   569 

Facsimile  of  a  Pass  Written  by  Lincoln 578 

Facsimile  of  Famous  Letter  of  President  Lincoln  to  a  Boston  Mother.  .  .Full  Page  585 

Charles  A.  Dana • 589 

A  Cartoon  Posted  during  the  Presidential  Campaign  of  1864 603 

"Long  Abraham"  Four  Years  Longer — A  Caricature 604 

General  Sherman   607 

Lieutenant  Tad  in  Uniform 611 

Facsimile  of  Note  from  Lincoln  Ordering  a  Well  Pumped  out  for  Tad 616 

Miss  Anna  Dickinson  619 

Charles   Sumner    621 

Jefferson  Davis  after  the  Fall  of  Richmond  625 

Lincoln  Entering  the  Confederate  Capital 628 

Leaving  the  Davis  Mansion Full  Page  630 

General  Jackson,  C.S.A 640 

Etching  of  Lincoln  in  1865   641 

Ford's  Theater,  where  the  Horrible  Crime  Was  Committed  645 

Facsimile  of  Lincoln's  Last  Writing,  April  14,  1865 647 

Plan  of  the  Proscenium  Box  in  which  Lincoln  Was  Shot 648 

The  Blood-stained  Play-bill   650 

Life  Mask  of  Lincoln,  by  L.  W.  Volk,  of  Chicago Full  Page  654 

Headlines  in  New  York  Herald  the  Morning  after  the  Assassination 658 

Horace  Greeley  659 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  676 

Framed  Photo  from  a  Popular  Portrait  of  Lincoln  , , , .  .Tailpiece  679 


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The  Story-Life  of  Lincoln 


CHAPTER  I 

Lincoln's  Immediate  Ancestors 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  President's  Grandfather,  the  Friend  of 

Daniel  Boone 

In  the  year  1780,  Abraham  Lincoln,  a  member  of  a  respectable 
and  well-to-do  family  in  Rockingham  County,  Virginia,  started 
westward  to  establish  himself  in  the  newly-explored  country  of 
Kentucky.  He  entered  several  large  tracts  of  fertile  land,  and 
returning  to  Virginia  disposed  of  his  property  there,  and  with  his 
wife  and  five  children  went  back  to  Kentucky  and  settled  in  Jeffer- 
son County There  is  little  doubt  that  it  was  on  account 

of  his  association  with  the  famous  Daniel  Boone  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  went  to  Kentucky.  The  families  had  for  a  century  been 
closely  allied.  There  were  frequent  intermarriages  among  them — 
both  being  of  Quaker  lineage 

The  life  of  the  pioneer  Abraham  Lincoln  soon  came  to  a 
disastrous  close.  He  had  settled  in  Jefferson  County,  in  the  land 
he  had  bought  from  the  Government,  and  cleared  a  small  farm  in 
the  forest.  One  morning,  in  the  year  1 784,  he  started  with  his  three 
sons,  Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas,  to  the  edge  of  the  clearing  and 
began  the  day's  work.  A  shot  from  the  brush  killed  the  father; 
Mordecai,  the  eldest  son,  ran  instinctively  to  the  house,  Josiah  to 
the  neighboring  fort  for  assistance,  and  Thomas,  the  youngest,  a 
child  of  six,  was  left  with  the  corpse  of  his  father.  Mordecai,  reach- 
ing the  cabin,  seized  the  rifle,  and  saw  through  the  loop-hole  an 
Indian  in  his  war-paint  stooping  to  raise  the  child  from  the  ground. 
He  took  deliberate  aim  at  a  white  ornament  on  the  breast  of  the 
savage  and  brought  him  down.  The  little  boy,  thus  released,  ran 
to  the  cabin,  and  Mordecai,  from  the  loft,  renewed  his  fire  upon  thi 

?  (17) 


1 8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

savages,  who  began  to  show  themselves  from  the  thicket,  until 
Josiah  returned  with  assistance  from  the  stockade,  and  the  assailants 
fled.  This  tragedy  made  an  indelible  impression  on  the  mind  of 
Mordecai.  Either  a  spirit  of  revenge  for  his  murdered  father,  or 
a  sportsmanlike  pleasure  in  his  successful  shot,  made  him  a  deter- 
mined Indian  stalker,  and  he  rarely  stopped  to  inquire  w^hether  the 
red  man  who  came  within  range  of  his  rifle  was  friendly  or  hostile. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  pages  1 6  to  21. 

Uncle  Mordecai 

So  far  as  they  are  known,  the  Lincolns  were  all  marked  char- 
acters. Some  reminiscences  related  of  Mordecai,  after  he  had 
reached  manhood,  give  a  welcome  glimpse  of  the  boy  who  exhibited 
such  coolness  and  daring  on  the  occasion  that  cost  his  father's  life. 
"  He  was  naturally  a  man  of  considerable  genius, "  says  one  who 
knew  him.  "He  was  a  man  of  great  drollery,  and  it  would  almost 
make  you  laugh  to  look  at  him.  I  never  saw  but  one  other  man 
whose  quiet,  droll  look  excited  in  me  the  same  disposition  to  laugh, 
and  that  was  Artemus  Ward.  Mordecai  was  quite  a  story-teller, 
and  in  this  Abe  resembled  his  'Uncle  Mord'  as  we  called  him.  He 
was  an  honest  man,  as  tender-hearted  as  a  woman,  and  to  the  last 

degree  charitable  and  benevolent Abe  Lincoln  had  a 

very  high  opinion  of  his  uncle,  and  on  one  occasion  remarked,  'I 
have  often  said  that  Uncle  Mord  had  run  off  with  all  the  talents  of 
the  family.'  " 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  40. 

Boyhood  of  Lincoln's  Father 

From  circumstantial  evidence  we  must  infer  that  Anna  Lincoln 
was  a  poor  manager,  or  perhaps  she  suffered  from  some  misfortune. 
All  we  know  is  that  she  abandoned  the  farm  in  Jefferson  County 
and  moved  south  into  the  neighboring  county  of  Washington,  when 
she  disappears  from  human  knowledge.  Her  eldest  son,  Mordecai, 
appears  to  have  inherited  his  father's  money,  as  the  rules  of  primo- 
geniture prevailed  in  those  days.  He  was  sheriff  of  Washington 
County,  a  member  of  the  Kentucky  Legislature,  and  tradition  gives 
him  the  reputation  of  an  honorable  and  influential  citizen 

Explanations  are  wanting  for  the  circumstance  that  Thomas, 
the  youngest  son  and  brother  of  this  prosperous  family,  whose 


LINCOLN'S  IMMEDIATE  ANCESTORS  19 

father  was  slain  before  his  eyes  when  he  was  only  six  years  old,  was 
turned  adrift,  without  home  or  care,  for  at  ten  years  of  age  we  find 
him  "a  wandering  laboring  boy"  who  was  left  uneducated  and 
supported  himself  by  farm  work  and  other  menial  employment,  and 
learned  the  trades  of  carpenter  and  cabinet-maker.  But  he  must 
have  had  good  stuff  in  him,  for  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  old 
he  had  saved  enough  from  his  wages  to  buy  a  farm  in  Hardin 
County.  Local  tradition,  which,  however,  cannot  always  be  trusted, 
represents  him  to  have  been  "  an  easy-going  man,  and  slow  to  anger, 
but  when  roused  a  formidable  adversary."  He  was  above  the 
medium  height,  had  a  powerful  frame,  and,  like  his  immortal  son, 
had  a  wide  local  reputation  as  a  wrestler. 

The  True  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  Eleroy  Curtis,  page  17. 

Nancy  Hanks,  Lincoln's  Mother 

At  the  time  of  her  marriage  to  Thomas  Lincoln,  Nancy  was 
in  her  twenty-third  year.  She  was  above  the  ordinary  height  in 
stature,  v/eighed  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  pounds,  was  slen- 
derly built,  and  had  much  the  appearance  of  one  inclined  to 
consumption.  Her  skin  was  dark ;  hair  dark  brown ;  eyes  gray  and 
small ;  forehead  prominent ;  face  sharp  and  angular,  with  a  marked 
expression  of  melancholy  which  fixed  itself  in  the  memory  of  every- 
one who  ever  saw  or  knew  her.  Though  her  life  was  seemingly 
beclouded  by  a  spirit  of  sadness,  she  was  in  disposition  amiable 
and  generally  cheerful.     Mr.  Lincoln  himself  said  to  me  in  1851,  on 

receiving  the  news  of  his 
father's  death,  that  whatever 
might  be  said  of  his  parents, 
and  however  unpromising  the 
early  surroundings  of  his 
mother  may  have  been,  she 
was  highly  intellectual  by 
nature,  had  a  strong  memory, 
acute  judgment,  and  was  cool 
and  heroic.  From  a  mental  standpoint  she  no  doubt  rose  above 
her  surroundings,  and  had  she  lived,  the  stimulus  of  her  nature 
would  have  accelerated  her  son's  success,  and  she  would  have  been 
a  much  more  ambitious  prompter  than  his  father  ever  was. 

Herndon's  Lincoln   William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  lo 


Daniel  Boone  enters  Kentucky 1769 

Gieat  emigration  to  Kentucky  began 1783 

Indian  uprising  there  against  whites 1786 

Washington's    first  inauguration  and  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution 1789 

Population  of  U.   S.,   3,380,000   ist  Census; 

number  of  slaves.  .  .  700,000 1790 

Kentucky  admitted  as  a  State 1792 

Cotton-gin  invented  by  Eli  Whitney i793 

Great     increase    in    producing   cotton,    and 

consequent  growth  of  slavery i795 

John  Adams  inaugurated  President i797 

Removal  of  U.  S.  Capital  to  Washington.  .  .  1800 


20 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Marriage  of  Lincoln's  Father  and  Mother 

I,  Christopher  Columbus  Graham,  now  in  my  hundredth  year, 
and  visiting  the  Southern  Exposition  in  Louisville,  where  I  live, 
tell  this ...  I  am  one  of  the  two  living  men  who  can  prove  that 
Abraham  Lincoln,  or  Linkhorn,  as  the  family  was  miscalled,  was 
born  in  lawful  wedlock,  for  I  saw  Thomas  Lincoln  marry  Nancy 
Hanks  on  the  twelfth  day  of  June,  1806.  .  .  .1  was  hunting  roots 
for  my  medicines,  and  just  went  to  the  wedding  to  get  a  good 

supper,  and  got  it 

Tom  Lincoln  was  a  carpenter,  and  a  good  one  for  those 
days,  when  a  cabin  was  built  mainly  with  the  ax,  and  not  a 
nail  or  bolt  or  hinge  in  it,  only  leathers  and  pins  to  the  door, 
and  no  glass,  except  in  watches  and  spectacles  and  bottles. 
Tom  had  the  best  set  of  tools  in-  what  was  then  and  now  Wash- 
ington County 

Jesse  Head,  the  good  Methodist 
minister  that  married  them,  was  also 
a  carpenter  or  cabinet-maker  by  trade, 
and  as  he  was  then  a  neighbor,  they 
were  good  friends.    .    .    . 

While  you  pin  me  down  to  facts, 
I  will  say  that  I  saw  Nancy  Hanks 
Lincoln  at  her  wedding,  a  fresh-look- 
ing girl,  I  should  say  over  twenty. 
Tom  was  a  respectable  mechanic  and 
could  choose,  and  she  was  treated  with 
respect. 

I  was  at  the  infare,  too,  given  by 
John  H.  Parrott,  her  guardian,  and 
only  girls  with  money  had  guardians 
appointed    by    the    court.     We    had 

Jesse  Head,  the  good  Methodist  minister    bcar-mCat ;      .  ...      VCniSOn  ;      Wild 

that  married  them.  turkcy    and    ducks'    cggs,    w41d    and 

tame — so  common  that  you  could  buy  them  at  two  bits  a  bushel ; 
maple  sugar,  swung  on  a  string,  to  bite  off  for  coffee  or  whiskey ; 
syrup  in  big  gourds;  peach-and -honey ;  a  sheep  that  the  two  fam- 
ilies barbecued  whole  over  coals  of  wood  burned  in  a  pit,  and 
covered  with  green  boughs  to  keep  the  juices  in;  and  a  race  for 


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LINCOLN'S  IMMEDIATE  ANCESTORS  21 

the  whiskey  bottle.  .  .  Our  table  was  of  the  puncheons  cut 
from  solid  logs,  and  on  the  next  day  they  were  the  floor  of  the 
new  cabin. 

Signed  Statement  of    Dr.   Christopher  Columbus  Graham,   of    Louisville,   Kentucky,  in    1884. 
Appended  to  The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

How  Tom  and  Nancy  Lincoln  Began  Life  Together 

"Looks  didn't  count  them  days,  nohow.  It  was  stren'th  an' 
work  an'  daredevil.  A  lazy  man  or  a  coward  was  jist  pizen,  an' 
a  spindlin'  feller  had  to  stay  in  the  settlemints.  The  clearin's 
hadn't  no  use  fur  him.  Tom  was  strong,  an'  he  wasn't  lazy  nor 
afeerd  o'  nothin',  but  he  was  kind  o'  shif'less — couldn't  git  nothin' 
ahead,  an'  didn't  keer  putickalar.  Lots  o'  them  kind  o'  fellers  in 
arly  days,  'druther  hunt  an'  fish,  an'  I  reckon  they  had  their  use. 
They  killed  off  the  varmints  an'  made  it  safe  fur  other  fellers  to  go 
into  the  woods  with  an  ax. 

"When  Nancy  married  Tom  he  was  workin'  in  a  carpenter 
shop.  It  wasn't  Tom's  fault  he  couldn't  make  a  livin'  by  his  trade. 
Thar  was  sca'cely  any  money  in  that  kentry.  Every  man  had  to 
do  his  own  tinkerin',  an'  keep  everlastin'ly  at  work  to  git  enough 
to  eat.  So  Tom  tuk  up  some  land.  It  was  mighty  ornery  land,  but 
it  was  the  best  Tom  could  git,  when  he  hadn't  much  to  trade  fur  it. 

"Pore?  We  was  all  pore,  them  days,  but  the  Lincolns  was 
porer  than  anybody.     Choppin'  trees  an'  grubbin'  roots  an'  splittin' 

rails  an'  huntin'  an'  trappin'  didn't  leave  Tom  no  time 

It  was  all  he  could  do  to  git  his  fambly  enough  to  eat  and  to  kiver 
'em.  Nancy  was  turrible  ashamed  o'  the  way  they  lived,  but  she 
knowed  Tom  was  doin'  his  best,  an'  she  wasn't  the  pesterin'  kind. 
She  was  purty  as  a  pictur  an'  smart  as  you'd  find  'em  anywhere. 
She  could  read  an'  write.  The  Hankses  was  some  smarter'n  the 
Lincolns.  Tom  thought  a  heap  o'  Nancy,  an'  he  was  as  good  to  her 
as  he  knowed  how.  He  didn't  drink  or  swear  or  play  cyards  or 
fight,  an'  them  was  drinkin',  cussin,'  quarrelsome  days.  Tom  was 
popylar,  an'  he  could  lick  a  bully  if  he  had  to.  He  jist  couldn't 
git  ahead,  somehow. " 

Reminiscences  of  Lincoln  s  Cousin  and  Play-mate,  Dennis  Hanks,  written  down  by  Mrs.  Eleanar 
Atkinson,  in  1889.     The  American  Magazine,  Vol.  LXV,  February,  1908,  page  361. 


CHAPTER  II 


First  Seven  Years  in  Kentucky 


Birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln 

Thomas  Lincoln  took  his  wife  to  a  little  log  cabin  in  a  hamlet 
called  Elizabethtown,  probably  because  he  thought  it  would  be 


In  this  cabin  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  on  February  12,  1809,  and  here  he  spent  the  first  four 

years  of  his  childhood. 

more  congenial  for  her  than  his  lonely  farm  in  Hardin  County, 
which  was  fourteen  miles  away ;  and  perhaps  he  thought  that  he  could 
earn  a  better  living  by  carpenter  work  than  by  farming.  Here 
their  first  child,  Sarah,  was  born  about  a  year  after  the  marriage. 

C22) 


FIRST  SEVEN  YEARS  IN  KENTUCKY 


'■3 


Thomas  Lincoln  either  failed  to  earn  sufficient  money  to  meet 
his  household  expenses  or  grew  tired  of  his  carpenter  work,  for, 
two  years  later,  he  left  Elizabethtown  and  moved  his  family  to  his 
farm  near  Hodgensville,  on  the  Big  South  Fork  of  Nolen  Creek.  It 
was  a  miserable  place,  of  thin,  unproductive  soil  and  only  partly 
cleared.  Its  only  attraction  was  a  fine  spring  of  water,  shaded  by  a 
little  grove,  which  caused  it  to  be  called  "Rock  Spring  Farm." 
The  cabin  was  of  the  rudest  sort,  with  a  single  room,  a  single  window, 
a  big  fireplace  and  a  huge  outside  chimney. 

In  this  cabin  Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  on  February  12,  1809, 
and  here  he  spent  the  first  four  years  of  his  childhood.  It  was  a 
far  reach  to  the  White  House.  Soon  after  his  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  he  furnished  a  brief  autobiography  to  Mr.  Hicks,  an 
artist  who  was  painting  his  portrait,  in  which  he  said: 

I  was  born  February  12,  1809,  in  then  Hardin  County,  Ken- 
tucky, at  a  point  within  the  now  County  of  Larue,  a  mile  or  a  mile 
and  a  half  from  where  Hodgen's  mill  now  is.  My  parents  being 
dead,  and  my  own  memory  not  serving,  I  know  no  means  of  identi- 
fying the  precise  locality.  It  was  on  Nolen  Creek.  ' 
June  14,  i860.                                                                    A.  Lincoln. 

The  precise  spot  has  since  been  clearly  identified,  and  the  cabin 
was  still  standing  after  his  death. 

The  True  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  Eleroy  Curtis,  page  19. 

Cousin  Dennis  Hanks  Tells  About  "Nancy's  Boy  Baby" 

"Tom  an'  Nancy  lived  on  a  farm  about  two  miles  from  us, 
when  Abe  was  born.  I  ricollect  Tom  comin'  over  to  our  house  one 
cold  mornin'  in  Feb'uary  an'  sayin'  kind  o'  slow,  'Nancy's  got  a 
boy  baby. ' 

"  Mother  got  flustered  an'  hurried  up  'er  work  to  go  over  to 
look  after  the  little  feller,  but  I  didn't  have  nothin'  to  wait  fur,  so 
I  cut  an'  run  the  hull  two  mile  to  see  my  new  cousin. 

"You  bet  I  was  tickled  to  death.  Babies  wasn't  as  common 
as  blackberries  in  the  woods  o'  Kaintucky.  Mother  come  over  and 
washed  him  an'  put  a  yaller  flannen  petticoat  on  him,  an'  cooked 
some  dried  berries  with  wild  honey  fur  Nancy,  an'  slicked  things 
up  an'  went  home.     An'  that's  all  the  nuss'n  either  of  'em  got,      ,    . 


24  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  I  rolled  up  in  a  b'ar  skin  an'  slep'  by  the  fire-place  that  night, 
so's  I  could  see  the  little  feller  when  he  cried  and  Tom  had  to  get  up 
an'  tend  to  him.  Nancy  let  me  hold  him  purty  soon.  Folks  often 
ask  me  if  Abe  was  a  good-lookin'  baby.  Well,  now,  he  looked  just 
like  any  other  baby,  at  fust — like  red  cherry  pulp  squeezed  dry. 
An'  he  didn't  improve  none  as  he  growed  older.  Abe  never  was 
much  fur  looks.  I  ricollect  how  Tom  joked  about  Abe's  long  legs 
when  he  was  toddlin'  round  the  cabin.  He  growed  out  o'  his  clothes 
faster'n  Nancy  could  make  'em. 

"  But  he  was  mighty  good  comp'ny,  solemn  as  a  papoose,  but 
interested  in  everything.  An'  he  always  did  have  fits  o'  cuttin' 
up.  I've  seen  him  when  he  was  a  little  feller,  settin'  on  a  stool, 
starin'  at  a  visitor.  All  of  a  sudden  he'd  bust  out  laughin'  fit  to 
kill.     If  he  told  us  what  he  was  laughin'  at,  half  the  time  we  couldn't 

see  no  joke 

"Abe  never  give  Nancy  no  trouble 
-after  he  could  walk  excep'  to  keep  him  in 
clothes.  Most  o'  the  time  we  went  bar 'foot. 
Ever  wear  a  wet  buckskin  glove?  Them 
moccasins  wasn't  no  putection  ag'inst  the 
wet.  Birch  bark  with  hickory  bark  soles, 
strapped  on  over  yarn  socks,  beat  buckskin 
all  holler,  fur  snow.  Abe  'n'  me  got  purty 
handy  contrivin'  things  that  way.  An'  Abe 
was  right  out  in  the  woods,  about  as  soon's 
he  was  weaned,  fishin'  in  the  crick,  settin' 
Dennis  Hanks,  Lincoln's  cousin  traps  fur  rabbits  an'  muskrats,  goin'  on 
and  playmate.  coon-huuts  with  Tom  an'  me  an'  the  dogs, 

foUerin'  up  bees  to  find  bee  trees,  an'  drappin'  corn  fur  his  pappy. 
Mighty  inter^^rin'  life  fur  a  boy,  but  thar  was  a  good  many  chances 
he  wouldn't  live  to  grow  up." 

Lincoln's  Boyhood,  Eleanor  Atkinson.     The  American  Magazine,  Vol.  LXV,  February,  1908,  page 
360. 

The  Little  Boy's  First  Teachers 

When  the  little  boy  was  about  four  years  old  the  first  real 
excitement  of  his  hfe  occurred.  His  father  moved  from  the  farm  on 
Nolen  Creek  to  another  some  fifteen  miles  northeast  on  Knob  Creek, 
and  here  the  child  began  to  go  to  school.  At  that  day  the  schools 
in  the  West  were  usually  accidental,  depending  upon  the  coming  of 


FIRST  SEVEN   YEARS  IN  KENTUCKY  25 

some  poor  and  ambitious  young  man  who  was  willing  to  teach  a 
few  terms  while  he  looked  for  an  opening  to  something  better.  The 
terms  were  irregular,  their  length  being  decided  by  the  time  th^ 
settlers  felt  able  to  board  the  master  and  pay  his  small  salary.  The 
chief  qualifications  for  a  schoolmaster  seem  to  have  been  enough 
strength  to  keep  the  "big  boys"  in  order,  though  one  high  in 
authority  affirms  that  pluck  went  "for  a  heap  sight  more'n  sinnoo 
with  boys. "      .... 

Lincoln's  first  teacher,  Zachariah  Riney,  was  a  Catholic.  Of 
his  second  teacher,  Caleb  Hazel,  we  know  even  less  than  of  Riney. 
Mr.  GoUaher  says  that  Abraham  Lincoln,  in  those  days  when  he  was 
his  schoolmate,  was  "an  unusually  bright  boy  at  school,  and  made 
splendid  progress  in  his  studies.  Indeed,  he  learned  faster  than 
any  of  his  schoolmates.  Though  so  young,  he  studied  very  hard. 
He  would  get  spicewood  bushes,  hack  them  up  on  a  log,  and  burn 
them  two  or  three  together,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  light  by  which 
he  might  pursue  his  studies.  " 

Probably  the  boy's  mother  had  something  to  do  with  the  spice- 
wood illuminations.  Tradition  has  it  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  took  great 
pains  to  teach  her  children  what  she  knew,  and  that  at  her  knee 
they  heard  all  the  Bible  lore,  fairy  tales,  and  country  legends  that 
she  had  been  able  to  gather  in  her  poor  life. 

Besides  the  "ABC  schools, "  as  Lincoln  called  them,  the  only 
other  medium  of  education  in  the  country  districts  of  Kentucky 
in  those  days  was  "preaching.  "  Itinerants  like  the  schoolmasters, 
the  preachers,  of  whatever  denomination,  were  generally  uncouth 
and  illiterate ;  the  code  of  morals  they  taught  was  mainly  a  healthy 
one,  and  they,  no  doubt,  did  much  to  keep  the  consciences  of  the 
pioneers  awake.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  they  ever  did  much 
for  the  moral  training  of  young  Lincoln,  though  he  certainly  got  his 
first  notion  of  public  speaking  from  them;  and  for  years  inhisboyhood 
one  of  his  chief  delights  was  to  gather  his  playmates  about  him,  and 
preach  and  thump  until  he  had  his  auditors  frightened  or  in  tears. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  is. 

Little  Abe's  Narrow  Escape  from  Drowning 

The  only  one  of  young  Lincoln's  playmates  now  living  is  an 
old  man  nearly  a  hundred  years  old,  named  Austin  GoUaher,  whose 
mind  is  bright  and  clear,  and  who  never  tires  of  telling  of  the  days 


26  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  and  he  were  "little  tikes"  and  played  together.  This  old 
man,  who  yet  lives  [1884]  in  the  log  house  in  which  he  has  always 
lived,  a  few  miles  from  the  old  Lincoln  place,  tells  entertaining 
stories  about  the  President's  boyhood. 

"I  once  saved  Lincoln's  life, "  relates  Mr.  GoUaher.  "We  had 
been  going  to  school  together  one  year ;  but  the  next  year  we  had 
no  school,  because  there  were  so  few  scholars  to  attend,  there  being 
only  about  twenty  in  the  school  the  year  before. 

"Consequently  Abe  and  I  had  not  much  to  do;  but,  as  we  did 
not  go  to  school  and  our  mothers  were  strict  with  us,  we  did  not  get 
to  see  each  other  very  often.  One  Sunday  morning  my  mother 
waked  me  up  early,  saying  she  was  going  to  see  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and 
that  I  could  go  along.  Glad  of  the  chance,  I  was  soon  dressed  and 
ready  to  go.  After  my  mother  and  I  got  there,  Abe  and  I  played 
all  through  the  day. 

"While  we  were  wandering  up  and  down  the  little  stream 
called  Knob  Creek,  Abe  said:  'Right  up  there' — pointing  to  the 
east — 'we  saw  a  covey  of  partridges  yesterday.  Let's  go  over. ' 
The  stream  was  too  wide  for  us  to  jump  across.  Finally  we  saw  a 
foot-log,  and  we  concluded  to  try  it.  It  was  narrow,  but  Abe  said, 
'Let's  coon  it. ' 

"  I  went  first  and  reached  the  other  side  all  right.  Abe  went 
about  half-way  across,  when  he  got  scared  and  began  trembling. 
I  hollered  to  him,  'Don't  look  down  nor  up  nor  sideways,  but  look 
right  at  me  and  hold  on  tight ! '  But  he  fell  off  into  the  creek,  and, 
as  the  water  was  about  seven  or  eight  feet  deep  (I  could  not  swim, 
and  neither  could  Abe) ,  I  knew  it  would  do  no  good  for  me  to  go  in 
after  him. 

"  So  I  got  a  stick — a  long  water  sprout — and  held  it  out  to  him. 
He  came  up,  grabbing  with  both  hands,  and  I  put  the  stick  into 
his  hands.  He  clung  to  it,  and  I  pulled  him  out  on  the  bank, 
almost  dead.  I  got  him  by  the  arms  and  shook  him  well,  and 
then  I  rolled  him  on  the  ground,  when  the  water  poured  out  of  his 
mouth. 

"  He  was  all  right  very  soon.  We  promised  each  other  that 
we  would  never  tell  anybody  about  it,  and  never  did  for  years, 
I  never  told  any  one  of  it  until  after  Lincoln  was  killed." 

Pest  Lincoln  Stories,  J.  E.  Gallaher,  page  i6. 


FIRST  SEVEN  YEARS  IN  KENTUCKY  27 

The  Boy  Meets  a  Soldier 

Of  all  these  years  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  early  childhood  we 
know  almost  nothing.  He  lived  a  solitary  life  in  the  woods,  returning 
from  his  lonesome  little  games  to  his  cheerless  home.  He  never 
talked  of  those  days  to  his  most  intimate  friends.  Once,  when 
asked  what  he  remembered  about  the  war  [of  181 2]  with  Great 
Britain,  he  replied: 

"  Nothing  but  this.  I  had  been  fishing  one  day  and  caught 
a  little  fish  which  I  was  taking  home.  I  met  a  soldier  on  the  road, 
and,  having  been  always  told  at  home  that  we  must  be  good  to  the 
soldiers,  I  gave  him  my  fish." 

This  is  only  a  faint  glimpse,  but  what  it  shows  is  rather 
pleasant — the  generous  child  and  the  patriotic  household.  But 
there  is  no  question  that  these  first  years  of  his  life  had  their  last- 
ing efTect  upon  the  temperament  of  this  great  mirthful  and 
melancholy  man. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  23. 

Abe  Goes  to  Mill  and  Thrashes  Three  Boys 

"A  mere  spindle  of  a  boy, "  as  one  old  gentleman  describes  the 
little  Abraham  giving  a  good  account  of  himself  in  possibly  his 
first  impact  with  opposing  strength.  The  lads  of  the  neighborhood, 
so  runs  the  story,  were  sent  after  school  hours  to  the  mill  with  com 
to  be  ground.  While  awaiting  their  turn,  they  passed  the  time,  as 
at  the  noon  recesses,  with  frolics  and  fights.  In  these  Lincoln  did 
not  participate. 

"  He  was,  "  says  Major  Alexander  Sympson,  who  tells  the  tale, 
"the  shyest,  most  reticent,  most  uncouth  and  awkward-appearing, 
homeliest  and  worst  dressed  of  any  in  the  entire  crowd."  So 
superlatively  wretched  a  butt  could  not  hope  to  look  on  long  unmo- 
lested. He  was  attacked  one  day,  as  he  stood  near  a  tree,  by  a  larger 
boy  with  others  at  his  back.  "  But,  "  said  the  Major,  "  the  very  acme 
of  astonishment  was  experienced  by  the  eagerly  expectant  crowd. 
For  Lincoln  soundly  thrashed  the  first,  second,  and  third  boy,  in 
succession;  and  then  placed  his  back  against  the  tree,  defied  the 
whole  crowd,  and  taunted  them  with  cowardice. " 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  2. 


2  8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


First  Work  on  the  Farm 

As  soon  as  the  child  was  strong  enough  to  follow  his  father  in 
the  fields,  he  was  put  to  work  at  simple  tasks ;  bringing  tools,  carry- 
ing water,  picking  berries,  dropping  seeds.  He  learned  to  know 
his  father's  farm  from  line  to  line,  and  years  after,  when  President 
of  the  United  States,  he  recalled  in  a  conversation  at  the  White 
House,  in  the  presence  of  Dr.  J.  J.  Wright  of  Emporia,  Kansas,  the 
arrangement  of  the  fields  and  an  incident  of  his  own  childish  expe- 
rience as  a  farmer's  son.  "Mr.  President, "  one  of  the  visitors  had 
asked,  "how  would  you  like  when  the  War  is  over  to  visit  your  old 
home  in  Kentucky?"  "I  would  like  it  very  much,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
replied.  "  I  remember  that  old  home  very  well.  Our  farm  was 
composed  of  three  fields.  It  lay  in  the  valley  surrounded  by  high 
hills  and  deep  gorges.  Sometimes  when  there  came  a  big  rain  in 
the  hills  the  water  would  come  down  through  the  gorges  and  spread 
all  over  the  farm.     The  last  thing  that  I  remember  of  doing  there 

was  one  Saturday    afternoon ; 


Jefiferson  made    President 1801 

Ohio  admitted  as  a  State    1802 

Importing  of  slaves  forbidden 1808 

Birth  of  Abraham  Lincoln 1809 

Madison  made  President 1809 

First  steamboat  on  the  Ohio  River 181 1 

War  declared  against  Great  Britain 1812 

Jackson's  victory  at    New  Orleans 

End  of  War  of  1812 1815 


the  other  boys  planted  the 
corn  in  what  we  called  the  big 
field;  it  contained  seven  acres 
— and  I  dropped  the  pumpkin 
seed.  I  dropped  two  seeds  in 
every  other  hill  and  every  other 

row.     The  next  Sunday  morning  there  came  a  big  rain  in  the  hills ; 

it  did  not  rain  a  drop  in  the  valley,  but  the  water  coming  through 

the  gorges  washed  ground,  corn,  pumpkin  seeds  and  all  clear  off 

the  field." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  17. 

Leaving  "Old  Kentucky" 

Almost  his  earliest  recollections  were  of  sitting  with  his  sister 
at  his  mother's  feet,  Hstening  as  she  read  from  a  book  or  told  tales 
of  imagination  or  experience.  Here  his  education  began,  and  when 
still  quite  young  he  eagerly  read  Robinson  Crusoe,  ^sop's  Fables, 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  other  books  common  at  plain  firesides  in 
the  older  States,  but  then  rare  in  Kentucky.  ...  He  was  not 
yet  eight  years  old  when  he  left  Kentucky.  One  of  the  last  inci- 
dents he  recalled  of  his  life  there  was  accompanying  his  mother 


FIRST  SEVEN   YEARS  IN  KENTUCKY  29 

on  her  parting  visit  to  the  grave  of  her  youngest  child,  a  son  who 
died  in  infancy. 

Hard  times  came  with  the  war  of  181 2,  and  lasted  long.  As 
some  relief,  the  Government  offered  its  wild  lands  north  of  the  Ohio 
to  new  settlers  on  credit.  There  were  serious  troubles,  too,  about 
land  titles  in  Kentucky;  nor  was  its  labor  system  kind  to  people 
who  labored.  Slavery  was  now  firmly  established  there,  and  the 
man  of  small  means  had  less  chance  of  rising  than  of  lapsing  into 
the  scorned  class  of  "  poor  whites.  "  Thomas  Lincoln  chose  to  live 
in  a  free  State.  That  this  was  one  of  his  motives  for  a  change  was 
explicitly  declared  by  his  son. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  Vol.  I,  pag«  lo. 


CHAPTER   III 

Fourteen  Years  in  Indiana 

Moving  to  Indiana 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  something  of  a  waterman.     In  the  fre- 
quent changes  of  occupation,  which  had  hitherto  made  his  Hfe  so 
barren  of  good  results,  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  the 
career  of  a  flatboatman.     He  had  accordingly  made  one,  or  perhaps 
two  trips  to  New  Orleans,  in  the  company  and  employment  of 
Isaac  Bush,  who  was  probably  a  near  relative  of  Sally  Bush.     It 
was  therefore  very  natural  that  when,  in  the  fall  of  1816,  he  finally 
determined  to  emigrate,  he  should  attempt  to  transport  his  goods 
by  water.     He  built  himself  a  boat,  which  seems  to  have  been  none 
of  the  best,  and  launched  it  on  the  Rolling  Fork,  at  the  mouth  of 
Knob  Creek,  a  half-mile  from  his  cabin.     Some  of  his  personal 
property,  including  carpenter's  tools,  he  put  on  board,  and  the  rest 
he  traded  for  four  hundred  gallons  of  whiskey.     With  this  crazy 
boat  and  this  singular  cargo,  he  put  out  into  the  stream  alone,  and 
floating  with  the  current  down  the  Rolling  Fork,  and  then  down 
Salt  River,  reached  the  Ohio  without  any  mishap.     Here  his  craft 
proved  somewhat  rickety  when  contending  with  the  difBculties  of 
the  larger  stream,  or  perhaps  there  was  a  lack  of  force  in  the  manage- 
ment of  her,  or  perhaps  the  single  navigator  had  consoled  himself 
during  the  lonely  voyage  by  too  frequent  applications  to  a  portion 
of  his  cargo ;  at  all  events,  the  boat  capsized  and  the  lading  went  to 
the  bottom.     He  fished  up  a  few  of  the  tools  "and  most  of  the 
whiskey,"  and,  righting  the  little  boat,  again  floated  down  to  a 
landing  at  Thompson's  Ferry,  two  and  a  half  miles  west  of  Troy, 
in  Perry  County,  Indiana.     Here  he  sold  his  treacherous  boat,  and, 
leaving  his  remaining  property  in  the  care  of  a  settler  named  Posey, 
trudged  off  on  foot  to  select  "  a  location  "  in  the  wilderness.     He  did 
not  go  far,  but  found  a  place  that  he  thought  would  suit  him,  only 
sixteen  miles  distant  from  the  river.     He  then  turned  about,  and 
tvalked  all  the  way  back  to  Knob  Creek,  in  Kentucky,  where  he 
took  a  fresh  start  with  his  wife  and  her  children.     Of  the  latter 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA 


31 


MAP  SHOWING  THE  REMOVALS  OF  THOMAS  LINCOLN  WITH  HIS  FAMILY 


i2  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


there  were  only  two, — Nancy  (or  Sarah),  nine  years  of  age,  and 
Abraham,  seven.  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  given  birth  to  another  son 
some  years  before,  but  he  had  died  when  only  three  days  old.  After 
leaving  Kentucky  she  had  no  more  children. 

This  time  Thomas  Lincoln  loaded  what  little  he  had  left  upon 
two  horses,  and  "  packed  through  to  Posey's.  "  Besides  clothing  and 
bedding,  they  carried  such  cooking  utensils  as  would  be  needed  by  the 
way,  and  would  be  indispensable  when  they  reached  their  destination. 
The  stock  was  not  large.  It  consisted  of  "  one  oven  and  lid,  one  skillet 
and  lid,  and  some  tin-ware. "  They  camped  out  during  the  nights, 
and,  of  course,  cooked  their  own  food.  [Thomas]  Lincoln's  skill  as 
a  hunter  must  now  have  stood  him  in  good  stead 

When  they  got  to  Posey's,  Lincoln  hired  a  wagon,  and  loading 
on  it  the  whiskey  and  other  things  he  had  stored  there,  went  on 
toward  the  place  which  has  since  become  famous  as  the  "  Lincoln 
Farm.  "  He  was  now  making  his  way  through  an  almost  untrodden 
wilderness.  There  was  no  road,  and  for  part  of  the  distance  not 
even  a  foot-trail.  He  was  slightly  assisted  by  a  path  of  a  few  miles 
in  length,  which  had  been  "blazed  out"  by  an  earlier  settler  named 
Hoskins.  But  he  was  obliged  to  suffer  long  delays,  and  cut  out  a 
passage  for  the  wagon  with  his  ax.  At  length,  after  many  deten- 
tions and  difficulties,  he  reached  the  point  where  he  intended  to 
make  his  future  home.  It  was  situated  between  the  forks  of  Big 
Pigeon  and  Little  Pigeon  Creeks,  a  mile  and  a  half  east  of  Gentry- 
ville,  a  village  which  grew  up  afterwards,  and  now  numbers  about 
three  hundred  inhabitants.  The  whole  country  was  covered  with 
a  dense  forest  of  oaks,  beeches,  walnuts,  sugar-maples,  and  nearly 
all  the  varieties  of  trees  that  flourish  in  North  America.  The  woods 
were  usually  open,  and  devoid  of  underbrush;  the  trees  were  of  the 
largest  growth,  and  beneath  the  deep  shade  they  afforded  was 
spread  out  a  rich  greensward.  The  natural  grazing  was  very  good, 
and  hogs  found  abundant  sustenance  in  the  prodigious  quantity  of 
mast.  There  was  occasionally  a  little  glade  or  prairie  set  down  in 
the  midst  of  this  vast  expanse  of  forest.  One  of  these,  not  far  from 
the  Lincoln  place,  was  a  famous  resort  for  the  deer,  and  the  hunters 
knew  it  well  for  its  numerous  "licks."  Upon  this  prairie  the 
militia  "musters"  were  had  at  a  later  day,  and  from  it  the  south 
fork  of  the  Pigeon  came  finally  to  be  known  as  the  "  Prairie  Fork. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  ig. 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN  INDIANA 


33 


The  Home  in  Indiana 

[Thomas]  Lincoln  laid  off  his  curtilage  on  a  gentle  hillock 
having  a  slope  on  every  side.  The  spot  was  very  beautiful,  and 
the  soil  was  excellent.  The  selection  was  wise  in  every  respect 
but  one.  There  was  no  water  near,  except  what  was  collected  in 
holes  in  the  ground  after  a  rain ;  but  it  was  very  foul,  and  had  to  be 
strained  before  using.     At  a  later  period  we  find  Abraham  and  his 


Lincoln's  second  house  was  a  "  rough,  rough  log"  one. 

sister  carrying  water  from  a  spring  situated  a  mile  away,  Dennis 
Hanks  asserts  that  Tom  Lincoln  "riddled  his  land  like  a  honey- 
comb," in  search  of  good  water,  and  was  at  last  sorely  tempted  to  em- 
ploy a  Yankee,  who  came  around  with  a  divining-rod,  and  declared 
that  for  the  small  consideration  of  five  dollars  in  cash,  he  would 
make  his  rod  point  to  a  cool,  flowing  spring  beneath  the  surface. 

Here  [Thomas]  Lincoln  built  "a  half -faced  camp," — a  cabin 
enclosed  on  three  sides  and  open  on  the  fourth.     It  was  built,  not 


34  THE  STORY -Li  i^E  OF  LINCOLN 

of  logs,  but  of  poles,  and  was  therefore  denominated  a  "camp, "  tc 
distinguish  it  from  a  "cabin. "  It  was  about  fourteen  feet  square, 
and  had  no  floor.  It  was  no  larger  than  the  first  house  he  lived  in 
at  Elizabethtown,  and  on  the  whole  not  as  good  a  shelter 

In  the  fall  of  1817,  Thomas  and  Betsy  Sparrow  came  out  from 
Kentucky,  and  took  up  their  abode  in  the  old  camp  which  the 
Lincolns  had  just  deserted  for  the  cabin.  Betsy  was  the  aunt  who 
had  raised  Nancy  Hanks.  She  had  done  the  same  in  part  for  our 
friend  Dennis  Hanks,  who  was  the  offspring  of  another  sister,  and 
she  now  brought  him  with  her.  Dennis  thus  became  the  constant 
companion  of  young  Abraham;  and  all  the  other  members  of  that 
family,  as  originally  settled  in  Indiana,  being  dead,  Dennis  remains 
a  most  important  witness  as  to  this  period  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  life. 

Lincoln's  second  house  was  a  "rough,  rough  log"  one;  the 
timbers  were  not  hewed ;  and  until  after  the  arrival  of  Sally  Bush, 
in  1 819,  it  had  neither  floor,  door,  nor  window.  It  stood  about 
forty  yards  from  what  Dennis  Hanks  calls  that  "darned  little  half- 
faced  camp,  "  which  was  now  the  dwelling  of  the  Sparrows.  It  was 
"right  in  the  bush," — in  the  heart  of  a  virgin  wilderness.  There 
were  only  seven  or  eight  older  settlers  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
two  Pigeon  Creeks.  Lincoln  had  had  some  previous  acquaintance 
with  one  of  them,  a  Mr.  Thomas  Carter ;  and  it  is  highly  probable 
that  nothing  but  this  trivial  circumstance  induced  him  to  settle  here. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lhtcoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  21, 

A  Seven- Year-Old  Woodman 

On  arriving  at  the  new  farm  an  ax  was  put  into  the  boy's 

hands,  and  he  was  set  to  work  to  aid 
in  clearing  a  field  for  corn,  and  to  help 
build  the  "half -face  camp"  which  for  a 
year  was  the  home  of  the  Lincolns. 
There  were  few  more  primitive  homes  in 
the  wilderness  of  Indiana  in  1816  than 
this  of  young  Lincoln's,  and  there  were 
few  families,  even  in  that  day,  who  were 
forced  to  practise  more  make-shifts  to 
ABE'S  AX.       '^^      get  a  living.     The  cabin  which  took  the 

place  of  the  "half -face  camp"  had  but 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  35 

one  room,  with  a  loft  above.  For  a  long  time  there  was  no  win- 
dow, door  or  floor,  not  even  the  traditional  deer-skin  hung  before 
the  exit ;  there  was  no  oiled  paper  over  the  opening  for  light ;  there 
was  no  puncheon  covering  on  the  ground. 

The  furniture  was  of  their  own  manufacture.  The  table  and 
chairs  were  of  the  rudest  sort — rough  slabs  of  wood  in  which  holes 
were  bored  and  legs  fitted  in.  Their  bedstead,  or,  rather,  bed- 
frame,  was  made  of  poles  held  up  by  two  outer  posts,  and  the  ends 
made  firm  by  inserting  the  poles  in  auger-holes  that  had  been  bored 
in  a  log  which  was  part  of  the  wall  of  the  cabin;  skins  were  its 
chief  covering.  Little  Abraham's  bed  was  even  more  primitive. 
He  slept  on  a  heap  of  dry  leaves  in  the  corner  of  the  loft,  to  which 
he  mounted  by  pegs  driven  into  the  wall. 

Their  food,  if  coarse,  was  usually  abundant ;  the  chief  difficulty 
in  supplying  the  larder  was  to  secure  any  variety.  Of  game 
there  was  plenty — deer,  bear,  pheasants,  wild  turkeys,  ducks,  birds 
of  all  kinds.  There  were  fish  in  the  streams,  and  wild  fruits  of 
many  kinds  in  the  woods  in  the  summer,  and  these  were  dried  for 
winter  use ;  but  the  difficulty  of  raising  and  milling  corn  and  wheat 
was  very  great.  Indeed,  in  many  places  in  the  West  the  first  flour 
cake  was  an  historical  event.  Corn  dodger  was  the  every-day 
bread  of  the  Lincoln  household,  the  wheat  cake  being  a  dainty 
reserved  for  Sunday  mornings. 

Potatoes  were  the  only  vegetables  raised  in  any  quantity,  and 
there  were  times  in  the  Lincoln  family  when  they  were  the  only 
food  on  the  table;  a  fact  proved  to  posterity  by  the  oft-quoted 
remark  of  Abraham  to  his  father  after  the  latter  had  asked  a  bless- 
ing over  a  dish  of  roasted  potatoes — that  they  were  "mighty  poor 
blessings." 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  54. 

Death  of  Lincoln's  Own  Mother 

In  the  fall  of  1818,  the  scantily  settled  region  in  the  vicinity 
of  Pigeon  Creek — where  the  Lincolns  were  then  living — suffered  a 
visitation  of  that  dread  disease  common  in  the  West  in  early  days, 
and  known  in  the  vernacular  of  the  frontier  as  "the  milk-sick. "      .    . 

Early  in  October  of  that  year,  Thomas  and  Besty  Sparrow  fell 
ill  of  the  disease  and  died  within  a  few"  days  of  each  other.  Thomas 
Lincoln  performed  the  services  of  undertaker.     With  his  whip- 


S6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

saw  he  cut  out  the  lumber,  and  with  commendable  promptness  he 
nailed  together  the  rude  coffins  to  enclose  the  forms  of  the  dead. 
The  bodies  were  borne  to  a  scantily  cleared  knoll  in  the  midst  of  the 
forest,  and  there,  without  ceremony,  quietly  let  down  into  the  grave. 
Meanwhile  Abe's  mother  had  also  fallen  a  victim  to  the  insidious 
disease.  Her  sufferings,  however,  were  destined  to  be  of  brief 
duration.  Within  a  week  she  too  rested  from  her  labors.  "She 
struggled  on,  day  by  day,"  says  one  of  the  household,  "a  good 
Christian  woman,  and  died  on  the  seventh  day  after  she  was  taken 
sick.  Abe  and  his  sister  Sarah  waited  on  their  mother,  and  did  the 
little  jobs  and  errands  required  of  them.  There  was  no  physician 
nearer  than  thirty -five  miles.  The  mother  knew  she  was  going  to 
die,  and  called  the  children  to  her  bedside.  She  was  very  weak, 
and  the  children  leaned  over  her  while  she  gave  her  last  message. 
Placing  her  feeble  hand  on  little  Abe's  head  she  told  him  to  be  kind 
and  good  to  his  father  and  sister;  to  both  she  said,  'Be  good  to  one 
another,'  expressing  a  hope  that  they  might  live,  as  they  had  been 
taught  by  her,  to  love  their  kindred  and  worship  God."  Amid  the 
miserable  surroundings  of  a  home  in  the  wilderness  Nancy  Hanks 
passed  across  the  dark  river.  Though  of  lowly  birth,  the  victim 
of  poverty  and  hard  usage,  she  takes  a  place  in  history  as  the  mother 
of  a  son  who  liberated  a  race  of  men. 

Herndon's  Lutcoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  22. 

The  Delayed  Funeral  Services 

It  was  the  custom  of  those  days,  and  of  that  country,  to  have 
a  funeral  sermon  preached  by  way  of  memorial,  any  time  within 
the  year  following  the  death  of  a  person.  So,-  as  soon  as  the  good 
mother  was  buried,  Abraham  Lincoln  composed  what  he  used  to  say 
was  his  first  letter,  and  addressed  it  to  Parson  Elkin,  the  Kentucky 
Baptist  preacher  who  had  sometimes  tarried  with  the  Lincolns  in 
their  humble  home  in  Kentucky.  It  was  a  great  favor  to  ask  of 
the  good  man;  for  his  journey  to  preach  a  sermon  over  the  grave 
of  Nancy  Lincoln  would  take  him  one  hundred  miles  or  more,  far 
from  his  customary  "stamping  ground."  But,  in  due  time,  Abra- 
ham received  an  answer  to  his  letter,  and  the  parson  promised  to 
come  when  his  calls  of  duty  led  him  near  the  Indiana  line. 

Early  in  the  following  summer,  when  the  trees  were  the 
greenest  and  the  forest  was  most  beautiful,  the  preacher  came  on 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA 


37 


his  errand  of  kindness.  It  was  a  bright  and  sunny  Sabbath  morn- 
ing, when,  due  notice  having  been  sent  around  through  all  the 
region,  men,  women  and  children  gathered  from  far  and  near  to 
hear  the  funeral  sermon  of  Nancy  Lincoln.  'There  was  the  hardy 
forest  ranger,  come  from  his  far-wandering  quests  to  hear.  There 
were  farmers  and  their  families,  borne  hither  in  rude  and  home- 


THE  BELATED  FUNERAL  SERMON 

The  good  preacher  told  of  the  virtues  and  the  patiently  borne  sufferings  of  the  departed 

mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

made  carts,  new-comers,  some  of  them,  and  homesick  for  their 
distant  birthplaces.  Two  hundred  of  them,  all  told,  some  on  foot 
and  some  on  horseback,  and  others  drawn  in  ox-carts.  All  were 
intent  on  the  great  event  of  the  season — ^the  preaching  of  Nancy 
Lincoln's  funeral  sermon. 

The  waiting  congregation  was  grouped  around  on  "down  trees." 


38  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

stumps  and  knots  of  bunch-grass,  or  on  wagon  tongues,  waiting  for 
the  coming  of  the  Httle  procession.  The  preacher  led  the  way  from 
the  Lincoln  cabin,  followed  by  Thomas  Lincoln,  his  son  Abraham, 
his  daughter  Sarah  and  .  .  .  Dennis  Hanks,  bereft  of  father  and 
mother,  and  now  a  member  of  the  Lincoln  household.  Tears  shone 
on  the  sun-browned  cheeks  of  the  silent  settlers  as  the  good  preacher 
told  of  the  virtues  and  the  patiently  borne  sufferings  of  the  departed 
mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  And  every  head  was  bowed  in 
reverential  solemnity  as  he  lifted  up  his  voice  in  prayer  for  the 
motherless  children  and  the  widowed  man.  To  Abraham,  listening 
as  he  did  to  the  last  words  that  should  be  said  over  the  grave  of  his 
mother,  this  was  a  very  memorable  occasion.  He  had  fulfilled 
a  pious  duty  in  bringing  the  preacher  to  the  place  where  she  was 
laid,  and  as  the  words,  wonderful  to  him,  dropped  from  the  speaker's 
lips,  he  felt  that  this  was  the  end,  at  least,  of  a  lovely  and  gentle 
life.  He  might  be  drawn  into  busy  and  trying  scenes  hereafter, 
and  he  might  have  many  and  mighty  cares  laid  on  him,  but  that 
scene  in  the  forest  by  the  lonely  grave  of  his  mother  was  never  to  be 
forgotten.  \ 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  at. 

"What  is  Home  without  a  Mother?" 

The  loss  of  his  mother  was  the  first  great  grief  of  young  Abra- 
ham, then  not  quite  ten  years  old.  The  love  of  reading  acquired 
through  her  inspiration  and  help  was  of  itself  enough,  in  his  con- 
dition, to  justify  his  saying: 

"I  owe  all  that  I  am  or  hope  to  be  to  my  sainted  mother." 

His  recollection  of  her  seemed  always  to  be  quite  clear  and 
vivid,  and  he  ever  spoke  of  her  with  tenderness  and  reverence. 

What  could  be  done  as  housekeeper  by  a  girl  of  twelve,  Saral 
did  for  more  than  a  year;  but  a  matron's  care  was  too  visibly 
lacking,  and  the  father  decided  to  ask  the  help  and  hand  of  one  he 
had  early  known  as  Sally  Bush,  now  living  in  widowhood  at  Eliza- 
bet  htown.  She  had  married  Daniel  Johnston,  the  jailer,  who 
died,  leaving  three  children  and  a  little  property 

"His  widow  continued  to  live  here  until  the  second  of  December, 
1 819.  Thomas  Lincoln  returned  to  this  place  on  the  first  day  of 
December,  and  inquired  for  the  residence  of  Widow  Johnston.  She 
lived  near  the  clerk's  office.     I  was  the  clerk,  and  informed  him 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  39 

how  to  find  her.  He  was  not  slow  to  present  himself  before  her, 
when  the  following  courtship  occurred.     He  said  to  her: 

"  'I  am  a  lone  man,  and  you  are  a  lone  woman.  I  have  knowed 
you  from  a  girl,  and  you  have  knowed  me  from  a  boy ;  and  I  have 
come  all  the  way  from  Indiana  to  ask  if  you'll  marry  me  right  off, 
as  I've  no  time  to  lose.' 

"To  which  she  replied:  'Tommy  Lincoln,  I  have  no  objection 
to  marrying  you,  but  I  cannot  do  it  right  off,  for  I  owe  several 
little  debts  which  must  first  be  paid.' 

"The  gallant  man  promptly  said :  'Give  me  a  list  of  your  debts.' 

"The  list  was  furnished,  and  the  debts  were  paid  the  same  even- 
ing. The  next  morning,  December  2,  181 9,  I  issued  the  license,  and 
the  same  day  they  were  married,  bundled  up,  and  started  for  home." 

By  the  Court  Clerk  in  Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  Vol.  I,  page  i6. 

The  Coming  of  the  New  Mother 

Mrs.  Johnston  has  been  denominated  a  "poor  widow,"  but 
she  possessed  goods  which,  in  the  eyes  of  Tom  Lincoln,  were  almost 
of  unparalleled  magnificence.  Among  other  things,  she  had  a 
bureau  that  cost  forty  dollars;  and  he  informed  her,  on  their 
arrival  in  Indiana,  that,  in  his  deliberate  opinion,  it  was  little  less 
than  sinful  to  be  the  owner  of  such  a  thing.  He  demanded  that 
she  should  turn  it  into  cash,  which  she  positively  refused  to  do. 
She  had  quite  a  lot  of  other  articles,  however,  which  he  thought  well 
enough  in  their  way,  and  some  of  which  were  sadly  needed  in  his 
miserable  cabin  in  the  wilds  of  Indiana.  Dennis  Hanks  speaks 
with  great  rapture  of  the  "large  supply  of  household  goods"  which 
she  brought  out  with  her.  There  was  "one  fine  bureau,  one  table, 
one  set  of  chairs,  one  large  clothes -chest,  cooking  utensils,  knives, 
forks,  bedding  and  other  articles."  It  was  a  glorious  day  for  little 
Abe  and  Sarah  and  Dennis  when  this  wondrous  collection  of  rich 
furniture  arrived  in  the  Pigeon  Creek  settlement.  But  all  this 
wealth  required  extraordinary  means  of  transportation;  and' 
Lincoln  had  recourse  to  his  brother-in-law,  Ralph  Krume,  who 
lived  just  over  the  line,  in  Breckinridge  County.  Krume  came  with 
a  four-horse  team,  and  moved  Mrs.  Johnston,  now  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
with  her  family  and  effects,  to  the  home  of  her  new  husband  in 

Indiana Her    own    goods    furnished    the    cabin    with 

tolerable  decency.     She  made  Lincoln  put  down  a  floor,  and  hang 


40  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

witidows  and  doors.  It  was  in  the  depth  of  winter;  and  the  chil- 
dreij,  as  they  nestled  in  the  warm  beds  she  provided  them,  enjoying 
the  strange  luxury  of  security  from  the  cold  winds  of  December, 
must  have  thanked  her  from  the  bottoms  of  their  newly-com- 
forted hearts.  She  had  brought  a  son  and  two  daughters  of  her  own 
— ^John,  Sarah,  and  Matilda;  but  little  Abe  and  his  sister  Nancy — • 
(whose  name  was  speedily  changed  to  Sarah),  the  ragged  and  hap- 
less little  strangers  to  her  brood,  were  given  an  equal  place  in  her 
affections.  They  were  half  naked,  and  she  clad  them  from  the 
stores  of  clothing  she  had  laid  up  for  her  own.  They  were  dirty, 
and  she  washed  them ;  they  had  been  ill-used,  and  she  treated  them 
with  motherly  tenderness.  In  her  own  modest  language,  she  "made 
them  look  a  little  more  human."  "In  fact,"  says  Dennis  Hanks, 
"in  a  few  weeks  all  had  changed;  and  where  everything  was  want- 
ing, now  all  was  snug  and  comfortable.  She  was  a  woman  of  great 
energy,  of  remarkable  good  sense,  very  industrious  and  saving,  and 
also  very  neat  and  tidy  in  her  person  and  manners,  and  knew 
exactly  how  to  manage  children.  She  took  an  especial  liking 
to  young  Abe.  Her  love  for  him  v/as  warmly  returned,  and 
continued  to  the  day  of  his  death.  But  few  children  love  their 
parents  as  he  loved  his  stepmother.  She  soon  dressed  him  up  in 
entire  new  clothes,  and  from  that  time  on  he  appeared  to  lead  a 
new  life.  He  was  encouraged  by  her  to  study,  and  any  wish  on 
his  part  was  gratified  when  it  could  be  done.  The  two  sets  of  chil- 
dren got  along  finely  together,  as  if  they  had  all  been  the  children 
of  the  same  parents." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  30. 

"Corn  Dodgers  and  Common  Doings" 

The  family  consisted  now  of  his  father  and  stepmother,  his 
sister  Sarah,  sometimes  called  Nancy,  the  three  children  of  his 
stepmother,  and  himself.  The  name  of  Mrs.  Johnston's  children 
were  John,  Sarah  and  Matilda.  They  all  went  to  school  together, 
sometimes  walking  four  or  five  miles,  and  taking  with  them,  for 
their  dinner,  cakes  made  of  the  coarse  meal  of  the  Indian  corn 
(maize)  and  known  as  "corn  dodgers."  The  settlers  used  the 
phrase  "corn  dodgers  and  common  doings,"  to  indicate  ordinary 
fare,  as  distinguished  from  the  luxury  of  "white  bread  and  chicken 
fixings. "     In  these  years  Abe  wore  a  cap  made  from  the  skin  of  the 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  rNDlAXA  41 

coon  or  squirrel,  buckskin  breeches,  a  hunting  shirt  of  deerskin,  or  a 
hnsey-woolsey  shirt,  and  very  coarse  cowhide  shoes.  His  food  was 
the  "corn  dodger"  and  the  game  of  the  forests  and  prairies.  The 
tools  he  most  constantly  used  were  the  ax,  the  maul,  the  hoe  and 
the  plough.     His  life  was  one  of  constant  and  hard  manual  labor. 

The  Life  of  Abraltam  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  22. 

Turkey-Buzzard  Pens,  Briar-Root  Ink,  and  Webster's  Speller 

As  to  the  material  with  which  the  boy  learned  to  write,  "  Uncle  " 
Dennis  says:  "Sometimes  he  would  write  with  a  piece  of  charcoal, 
or  the  p'int  of  a  burnt  stick,  on  the  fence  or  floor.  We  got  a  little 
paper  at  the  country  town,  and  I  made  ink  out  of  blackberry  briar- 
root  and  a  little  copperas  in  it.  It  was  black,  but  the  copperas 
would  eat  the  paper  after  a  while.  I  made  his  first  pen  out  of  a 
turkey-buzzard  feather.  We  had  no  geese  them  days.  After  he 
learned  to  write  he  w^as  scratchin '  his  name  everywhere ;  sometimes 
he  would  write  it  on  the  white  sand  down  by  the  crick  bank,  and 
leave  it  till  the  waves  would  blot  it  out. 

"His  first  reading  book  was  Webster's  Speller.  Then  he  got 
hold  of  a  book — I  can't  rikkilect  the  name.  It  told  a  yarn  about 
a  feller,  a  nigger  or  suthin',  that  sailed  a  flatboat  up  to  a  rock,  and 
the  rock  was  magnetized  and  drawed  the  nails  out  of  his  boat,  an ' 
he  got  a  duckin, '  or  drownded,  or  suthin ',  I  forget  now.  "  (It  was 
the  "  Arabian  Nights.  ")  "Abe  would  lay  on  the  floor  with  a  chair 
under  his  head,  and  laugh  over  them  stories  by  the  hour.  I  told 
him  they  was  likely  lies  from  end  to  end;  but  he  learned  to  read 
right  well  in  them." 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  52. 

At  Hazel  Dorsey's  School 

Hazel  Dorsey  was  Abe's  first  teacher  in  Indiana.  He  held 
forth  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Lincoln  farm.  The  school-house 
was  built  of  round  logs,  and  was  just  high  enough  for  a  man  to 
stand  erect  under  the  loft.  The  floor  was  of  split  logs,  or  what  were 
called  puncheons.  The  chimney  was  made  of  poles  and  clay;  and 
the  windows  were  made  by  cutting  out  parts  of  two  logs,  placing 
pieces  of  split  boards  a  proper  distance  apart,  and  over  the  aperture 
thus  formed  pasting  pieces  of  greased  paper  to  admit  light.  At 
school  Abe  evinced  ability  enough  to  gain  him  a  prominent  place  in 


42  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  respect  of  the  teacher  and  the  affections  of  his  fellow-scholars. 
Elements  of  leadership  in  him  seem  to  have  manifested  themselves 
already.  Nathaniel  Grigsby — whose  brother,  Aaron,  afterwards 
married  Abe's  sister  Sarah — attended  the  same  school.  He  certi- 
fies to  Abe's  proficiency  and  worth  in  glowing  terms. 

"He  was  always  at  school  early,"  writes  Grigsby,  "and 
attended  to  his  studies.  He  was  always  at  the  head  of  his  class, 
and  passed  us  rapidly  in  his  studies.  He  lost  no  time  at  home,  and 
when  he  was  not  at  work  was  at  his  books.  He  kept  up  his  studies 
on  Sunday,  and  carried  his  books  with  him  to  work,  so  that  he  might 
read  when  he  rested  from  labor."  Now  and  then,  the  family 
exchequer  running  low,  it  would  be  found  necessary  for  the  young 
rail-splitter  to  stop  school,  and  either  work  with  his  father  on  the 
farm,  or  render  like  service  for  the  neighbors.  These  periods  of 
work  occurred  so  often  and  continued  so  long,  that  all  his  school 
days  added  together  would  not  make  a  year. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  page  31. 

"No  Common  Boy" 

Nearly  a  year  more  passed.  The  sermon  by  Parson  Elkins 
ceased  to  be  a  theme  of  conversation  among  the  settlers.  Abraham 
had  continued  to  assist  his  father,  and  devote  his  leisure  moments 
to  reading  and  writing.  Time  that  other  boys  would  spend  in  play 
he  employed  in  poring  over  books.  If  he  had  no  new  ones  to 
peruse  he  read  old  ones. 

The  long  period  of  loneliness  that  had  elapsed  since  his 
mother's  death  served  to  make  him  doubly  value  the  presence  of 
one  who  would  fill  her  place  well.  He  did  not  receive  her  as  a 
stranger.  He  did  not  cherish  the  least  suspicion  that  she  would 
prove  otherwise  than  a  loving  parent.  He  gave  her  his  confidence 
at  once,  and  she  bestowed  on  him  such  care  and  tender  regard  as 
only  a  thoughtful,  pious  and  faithful  mothei* would.  A  mutual  good 
understanding  and  affection  sprang  up  between  them,  and  it  w^as 
never  interrupted.     .... 

His  new  mother  saw  at  once  that  he  was  no  common  boy. 
She  was  struck  with  his  intelligence,  knowledge  and  uprightness. 
She  had  never  seen  his  like 

About  this  time,  among  the  families  that  came  into  that  region 
to  settle,  was  that  of  Mr.  Andrew  Crawford.     He  was  a  man  of 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  TN  INDIANA 


43 


more  culture  than  most  of  the  settlers,  and  was  able  to  teach  read- 
ing, writing,  and  arithmetic  as  far  as  the  "rule  of  three."  His  abil- 
ities becoming  known,  he  was  urged  to  open  a  school 

"Another  chance  for  you  to  go  to  school." 

"Where?" 

"That  man  Crawford,  that  moved  in  a  while  ago,  will  begin 
school  next  week,  ....  and  two  miles  will  be  just  far  enough 
for  you  to  walk  to  keep  your  legs  limber. "     .... 

Thus  was  the  way  opened  for  Abraham  to  attend  school  again. 

The  Pioneer  Boy,  William  M.  Thayer,  page  154. 

"Manners"  and  Spelling 

Abraham  began  his  irregular  attendance  at  the  nearest  school 
very  soon  after  he  fell  under  the  care  of  the  second  Mrs.  Lincoln. 
It  was  probably  in  the  win- 
ter of  1819-20,  she  having 
come  out  in  December,  1819. 
It  has  been  seen  that  she 
was  as  much  impressed  by 
his  mental  precocity  as 
by  the  good  qualities  of  his 
heart.     .    .    . 

The  next  teacher  was  An- 
drew Crawford.  Mrs.  Gentry 
says  he  began  as  pedagogue 
in  the  neighborhood  in  the 
winter  of  1822-3,  whilst  most 
of  his  other  scholars  are  un- 
able to  fix  the  exact  date. 
He  "  kept"  in  the  same  little 
schoolhouse  which  had  been  the  scene  of  Dorsey's  labors,  and 
the  windows  were  still  adorned  with  the  greased  leaves  of  old 
copybooks  that  had  come  down  from  Dorsey's  time.  Abe  was  now 
in  his  fifteenth  year,  and  began  to  exhibit  symptoms  of  gallantry 
toward  the  weaker  sex,  as  we  shall  presently  discover.  He  was 
growing  at  a  tremendous  rate,  and  two  years  later  attained  his  full 
height  of  six  feet  four  inches.  He  was  long,  wiry  and  strong; 
while  his  big  feet  and  hands,  and  the  length  of  his  legs  and  arms, 
were  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  small  trunk  and  head.     His  com- 


Sarah  Bush  Lincoln,  Abraham's  stepmother. 


44  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

plexion  was  very  swarthy,  and  Mrs.  Gentry  says  that  his  skin  was 
shriveled  and  yellow  even  then.  He  wore  low  shoes,  buckskin 
breeches,  linsey-woolsey  shirt,  and  a  cap  made  of  the  skin  of  an 
opossum  or  a  coon.  The  breeches  clung  close  to  his  thighs  and  legs, 
but  failed  by  a  large  space  to  meet  the  top  of  his  shoes.  Twelve 
inches  remained  uncovered,  and  exposed  that  much  of  "  shin-bone, 
sharp,  blue  and  narrow.  "  "  He  would  always  come  to  school  thus, 
good-humoredly  and  laughing, "  says  his  old  friend,  Nat  Grigsby. 
"  He  was  always  in  good  health,  never  was  sick,  had  an  excellent 
constitution." 

Crawford  taught  "manners."  This  was  a  feature  of  back- 
woods education  to  which  Dorsey  had  not  aspired,  and  Crawford 
had  doubtless  introduced  it  as  a  refinement  which  would  put  to 
shame  the  humbler  efforts  of  his  predecessor.  One  of  the  scholars 
was  required  to  retire,  and  re-enter  as  a  polite  gentleman  is  supposed 
to  enter  a  drawing-room.  He  was  received  at  the  door  by  another 
scholar,  and  conducted  from  bench  to  bench,  until  he  had  been  intro- 
duced to  all  the  "young  ladies  and  gentlemen"  in  the  room.  Abe 
went  through  the  ordeal  countless  times.  If  he  took  a  serious  view 
of  the  business,  it  must  have  put  him  to  exquisite  torture;  for  he 
was  conscious  that  he  was  not  a  perfect  type  of  manly  beauty,  with 
his  long  legs  and  blue  shins,  his  small  head,  his  great  ears,  and 
shriveled  skin.  If,  however,  it  struck  him  as  at  all  funny,  it  must 
have  filled  him  with  unspeakable  mirth,  and  given  rise  to  many 
antics,  tricks  and  sly  jokes,  as  he  was  gravely  led  about,  shame- 
faced and  gawky,  under  the  very  eye  of  the  precise  Crawford, 
to  be  introduced  to  the  boys  and  girls  of  his  most  ancient 
acquaintance. 

But,  though  Crawford  inculcated  manners,  he  by  no  means 
neglected  spelling.  Abe  was  a  good  speller,  and  liked  to  use  his 
knowledge,  not  only  to  secure  honors  for  himself,  but  to  help  his 
less  fortunate  schoolmates  out  of  their  troubles,  and  he  was  exceed- 
ingly ingenious  in  the  selection  of  expedients  for  conveying  pro- 
hibited hints.  One  day  Crawford  gave  out  the  difficult  word  defied. 
A  large  class  was  on  the  floor,  but  they  all  provokingly  failed  to 
spell  it.  D-e-f-i-d-e,  said  one ;  d-e-f-y-d-e,  said  another ;  d-e-f-y-d, 
d-e-f-y-e-d,  cried  another  and  another.  But  it  was  all  wrong; 
it  was  shameful,  that,  among  all  these  big  boys  and  girls,  nobody 
could  spell   "defied;"  and   Crawford's  wrath  gathered   in  clouds 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  45 

over  his  terrible  brow.  He  made  the  helpless  culprits  shake  with 
fear.  He  declared  he  would  keep  the  whole  class  in  all  day  and 
all  night,  if  "defied"  was  not  spelled.  There  was  among  them  a 
Miss  Roby,  a  girl  fifteen  years  of  age,  whom  we  must  suppose  to 
have  been  pretty,  for  Abe  was  evidently  half  in  love  with  her.  "  I 
saw  Lincoln  at  the  window, "  says  she.  "  He  had  his  finger  in  his 
eye,  and  a  smile  on  his  face ;  I  instantly  took  the  hint,  that  I  must 
change  the  letter  y  into  an  i.  Hence  I  spelled  the  word, — 
the  class  let  out.  I  felt  grateful  to  Lincoln  for  this  simple 
thing." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  33. 

"I  Hung  on  It  and  It  Broke" 

In  1823  Abraham  Lincoln  went  briefly  to  Crawford's  school, 
a  log  house,  pleasing  the  teacher  by  his  attention  to  the  simple 
course.  The  boy  had  read  but  a  small  library,  principally  "  Weems' 
Life  of  Washington,"  which  had  impressed  him  deeply.  This  is 
shown  by  Andrew  Crawford,  the  Spencer  County  pedagogue.  The 
latter  saw  that  a  buck's  head,  nailed  on  the  schoolhouse,  was 
broken  in  one  horn,  and  asked  the  scholars  who  among  them 
broke  it. 

"I  did  it,"  answered  young  Lincoln  promptly.  "I  did 
not  mean  to  do  it,  but  I  hung  on  it" — he  was  very  tall  and 
reached  it  too  easily — "and  it  broke!"  Though  lean,  he 
weighed  fairly.  "I  wouldn't  have  done  it  if  I  had  thought  it 
would  break. " 

Other  boys  of  that  class  would  have  tried  to  conceal  what  they 
did  and  would  not  have  owned  up  until  obliged  to  do  so. 

The  Lincoln  Story  Book,  Henry  L.  Williams,  page  9. 

Some  Schoolboy  Rhymes 

While  at  school  it  is  doubtful  if  he  was  able  to  own  an  arithmetic. 
His  stepmother  was  unable  to  remember  his  ever  having  owned  one. 
She  gave  me,  however,  a  few  leaves  from  a  book  made  and  bound 
by  Abe,  in  which  he  had  entered,  in  a  large,  bold  hand,  the  tables 
of  weights  and  measures,  and  the  "sums"  to  be  worked  out  in 
illustration  of  each  table.  Where  the  arithmetic  was  obtained  I 
could  not  learn.     On  one  of  the  pages  which  the  old  lady  gave  me, 


46 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


K 


^#€ 

/2- 

-/- 

^0 

v>- 

-,3- 

■  ^"1 

^■ 

-/- 

-33 

/2- 

-■/- 

-/^ 

G^^(P. 


AO 


lAX 


"^1  and  just 
j  underneath 
the  table 
which  tells 
how  many- 
pints  there 
are  in  a 
bushel,  the 
f  ac  etious 
young  stu- 
dent had 
scrawled 
these  four 
lines  of  school- 
boy doggerel: 

Abraham    Lin- 
coln, 
His  hand    and 
pen, 
He  will  be  good, 
But  God  knows 
when. 

On  another 
page  were 
found,  in  his 
own  hand,  a 
few  lines 
which  it  is 
also  said  he 
comp  o  s  ed. 
Nothing  indi- 
cates that 
they  were 
borrowed, 
and  I  have 
always,  there- 
fore, believed  that  they  were  original  with  him.  Although  a  little 
irregular  in  metre,  the  sentiment  would,  I  think,  do  credit  to 
an  older  head: 


7Y~'  ^~  -I 


^_y^yC^f^C'^^y^ 


A  leaf  from  Abe's  exercise  book   showing  the  "  four  lines  of  schoolboy 

doggerel." 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  47 

Time,  what  an  empty  vapor  'tis, 

And  days  how  swift  they  are  : 
Swift  as  an  Indian  arrow — 

Fly  on  like  a  shooting  star. 
The  present  moment  just  is  here, 

Then  slides  away  in  haste, 
That  we  can  never  say  they're  ours, 

But  only  say  they're  past. 

His  penmanship,  after  some  practice,  became  so  regular  in  form 
that  it  excited  the  admiration  of  other  and  younger  boys.  One  of 
the  latter,  Joseph  C.  Richardson,  said  that  "Abe  Lincoln  was  the 
best  penman  in  the  neighborhood."  At  Richardson's  request  he 
made  some  copies  for  practice.  During  my  visit  to  Indiana  I  met 
Richardson,  who  showed  these  two  lines,  which  Abe  had  prepared 
for  him: 

Good  boys  who  to  their  books  apply 
Will  all  be  great  men  by  and  by. 

Herndons  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  37. 

Writes  and  "Preaches"  Against  Cruelty  to  Animals 

While  in  'Crawford's  school,  the  lad  made  his  first  essay  in 
writing  compositions.  The  exercise  was  not  required  by  the  teacher, 
but  "he  took  it  up  on  his  own  account,"  as  Nat  Grigsby  has  said. 
He  first  wrote  short  sentences  against  "  cruelty  to  animals,  "  and  at 
last  came  forward  with  a  regular  composition  on  the  subject.  He 
was  very  much  annoyed  and  pained  by  the  conduct  of  the  boys, 
who  were  in  the  habit  of  catching  terrapins  and  putting  coals  of 
fire  on  their  backs.  "He  would  chide  us,"  says  Nat,  "tell  us  it 
was  wrong,  and  would  write  against  it.  "...    . 

One  day  his  stepbrother,  John  Johnston,  "caught  a  terrapin, 
and  brought  it  to  the  place  where  Abe  was  'preaching, '  threw  it 
against  the  tree,  and  crushed  the  shell.  It  suffered  much,  quivered 
all  over.  Abe  then  preached  against  cruelty  to  animals,  contending 
that  an  ant's  life  was  as  sweet  to  it  as  ours  to  us.  " 

Nat  Grigsby  and  Matilda  Johnston,  as  quoted  by  F.  F.  Browne,  The  Every-Day  Lift  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  pages  65  and  72. 


>  >» 


"Abe  Was  a  'Mother's  Boy 

As  far  as  food  and  clothing  were  concerned,  the  boy  had  plenty 
—"such  as  it  was — corn  dodgers,  bacon,  and  game,  some  fish  and 


48  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

wild  fruits.  ,  .  .  We  had  very  little  wheat  flour.  The  nearest 
mill  was  eighteen  miles.  A  boss  mill  it  was,  with  a  plug  [old  horse] 
puUin '  a  beam  around ;  and  Abe  used  to  say  his  dog  could  stand  and 
eat  the  flour  as  fast  as  it  was  made,  and  then  be  ready  for  supper. 
For  clothing  he  had  jeans.  He  was  grown  before  he  wore  all-wool 
pants.  It  was  a  new  country,  and  he  was  a  raw  boy,  rather  a  bright 
and  likely  lad ;  but  the  big  world  seemed  far  ahead  of  him.  We  were 
all  slow-goin '  folks.  But  he  had  the  stuff  of  greatness  in  him.  He 
got  his  rare  sense  and  sterling  principles  from  both  parents.  .  .  . 
But  Abe's  kindliness,  humor,  love  of  humanity,  hatred  of  slavery, 
all  came  from  his  mother.  I  am  free  to  say  Abe  was  a  'mother's 
boy.'  " 

Dennis  Hanks,  as  quoted  by  F.  F.  Browne,  The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  page  S4. 

"The  Best  Boy  I  Ever  Saw" 

His  voracity  for  anything  printed  was  insatiable.  He  would 
sit  in  the  twilight  and  read  a  dictionary  as  long  as  he  could  see.  He 
used  to  go  to  David  Turnham's,  the  town  constable,  and  devour  the 
"Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana,"  as  boys  in  our  day  .do  the  "Three 
Guardsmen. "  Of  the  books  he  did  not  own  he  took  voluminous 
notes,  filling  his  copy-book  with  choice  extracts,  and  poring  ovei 

them  until  they  were  fixed  in  his  memory He  wrought 

his  appointed  tasks  ungrudgingly,  though  without  enthusiasm, 
but  when  his  employer's  day  was  over,  his  own  began. 

John  Hanks  says :  "  When  Abe  and  I  returned  to  the  house  from 
work  he  would  go  to  the  cupboard,  snatch  a  piece  of  corn-bread, 
take  down  a  book,  sit  down,  cock  his  legs  up  as  high  as  his  head,  and 
read."  The  picture  may  be  lacking  in  grace,  but  its  truthfulness 
is  beyond  question.  The  habit  remained  with  him  always.  Some 
of  his  greatest  work  in  later  years  was  done  in  this  grotesque  Wes- 
tern fashion, — "sitting  on  his  shoulder-blades."      .... 

Mrs.  Lincoln,  not  long  before  her  death,  gave  striking  testimony 
of  his  winning  and  loyal  character.  She  said  to  Mr.  Herndon: 
"  I  can  say,  w^hat  scarcely  one  mother  in  a  thousand  can  say,  Abe 
never  gave  me  a  cross  word  or  look,  and  never  refused  in  fact  or 
appearance  to  do  anything  I  asked  him.     His  mind  and  mine— 

what  little  I  had — seemed  to  run  together I  had  a  son 

John,  who  was  raised  with  Abe.     Both  were  good  boys,  but  I  must 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  49 

say,  both  now  being  dead,  that  Abe  was  the  best  boy  I  ever  saw  or 
expect  to  see. " 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  35. 

How,  What  and  When  He  Read 

With  all  his  hard  living  and  hard  work,  Lincoln  was  getting, 
m  this  period,  a  desultory  kind  of  education.  Not  that  he  received 
much  schooling.  He  went  to  school  "  by  littles,  "  he  says ;  "in  all  it 
did  not  amount  to  more  than  a  year. "  And,  if  we  accept  his  own 
description  of  the  teachers,  it  was,  perhaps,  just  as  well  that  it  was 
only  "  by  littles.  "  No  qualification  was  required  of  a  teacher  beyond 
"readin',  writin',  and  ciphering  to  the  rule  of  three."  If  a 
straggler  supposed  to  know  Latin  happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, he  was  looked  upon  as  a  "  wizard.  "  But  more  or  less  of  a 
schoolroom  is  a  matter  of  small  importance  if  a  boy  has  learned  to 
read  and  to  think  of  what  he  reads.  And  that,  this  boy  had  learned. 
His  stock  of  books  was  small,  but  he  knew  them  thoroughly,  and 
they  were  good  books  to  know :  the  Bible,  "^^sop's  Fables,"  "Robin- 
son Crusoe,"  Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Progress,"  a  "History  of  the 
United  States,  "  Weems's  "  Life  of  Washington,  "  and  the  "  Statutes 
of  Indiana. "      .... 

Besides  these  books  he  borrowed  many  others.  He  once  told 
a  friend  that  he  "read  through  every  book  he  had  ever  heard  of  in 
that  country,  for  a  circuit  of  fifty  miles.  "  From  everything  he  read 
he  made  long  extracts,  with  his  turkey-buzzard  pen  and  briar-root 
ink.  When  he  had  no  paper  he  would  write  on  a  board,  and  thus 
preserve  his  selections  until  he  secured  a  copybook.  The  wooden 
fire-shovel  was  his  usual  slate,  and  on  its  back  he  ciphered  with  a 
charred  stick,  shaving  it  off  when  it  became  too  grimy  for  use.  The 
logs  and  boards  in  his  vicinity  he  covered  with  his  figures  and  quota- 
tions. By  night  he  read  and  worked  as  long  as  there  was  light,  and 
he  kept  a  book  in  a  crack  of  the  logs  in  his  loft,  to  have  it  at  hand  at 
peep  of  day.  When  acting  as  ferryman  on  the  Ohio,  in  his  nine- 
teenth year,  anxious,  no  doubt,  to  get  through  the  books  of  the 
house  where  he  boarded,  before  he  left  the  place,  he  read  every 
night  until  midnight. 

Every  lull  in  his  daily  labor  he  used  for  reading,  rarely  going  to 
his  work  without  a  book.     When  ploughing  or  cultivating  the  rough 


5©  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

fields  of  Spencer  County,  he  found  frequently  a  half  hour  for  read- 
ing, for  at  the  end  of  every  long  row  the  horse  was  allowed  to  rest, 
and  Lincoln  had  his  book  out  and  was  perched  on  stump  or  fence, 
almost  as  soon  as  the  plough  had  come  to  a  standstill.  One  of  the 
few  people  still  left  in  Gentryville,  who  remembers  Lincoln,  Captain 
John  Lamar,  tells  to  this  day  of  riding  to  mill  with  his  father,  and 
seeing,  as  they  drove  along,  a  boy  sitting  on  the  top  rail  of  an  old- 
fashioned  stake-and-rider  or  worm  fence,  reading  so  intently  that  he 
did  not  notice  their  approach.  His  father  turning  to  him,  said : 
"John,  look  at  that  boy  yonder,  and  mark  my  words,  he  will  make 
a  smart  man  out  of  himself.  I  may  not  see  it,  but  you'll  see  if  my 
words  don't  come  true.  "  "  That  boy  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  "  adds 
Mr.  Lamar  impressively. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  ag. 

» 

Lincoln  Tells  of  His  First  Love  Story 

"  Did  you  ever  write  out  a  story  in  your  mind  ?  I  did  when  I  was 
a  little  codger.  One  day  a  wagon  with  a  lady  and  two  girls  and  a 
man  broke  down  near  us,  and  while  they  were  fixing  up,  they  cooked 
in  our  kitchen.  The  woman  had  books  and  read  us  stories,  and  they 
were  the  first  of  the  kind  I  ever  had  heard.  I  took  a  great  fancy  to 
one  of  the  girls ;  and  when  they  were  gone  I  thought  of  her  a  great 
deal,  and  one  day  when  I  was  sitting  out  in  the  sun  by  the  house  I 
wrote  out  a  story  in  my  mind.  I  thought  I  took  my  father's  horse 
and  followed  the  wagon,  and  finally  I  found  it,  and  they  w^ere  sur- 
prised to  see  me.  I  talked  with  the  girl  and  persuaded  her  to  elope 
with  me ;  and  that  night  I  put  her  on  my  horse,  and  we  started  oflf 
across  the  prairie.  After  several  hours  we  came  to  a  camp ;  and 
when  we  rode  up  we  found  it  was  the  one  we  left  a  few  hours  before, 
and  we  went  in.  The  next  night  we  tried  again,  and  the  same  thing 
happened — the  horse  came  back  to  the  same  place;  and  then  we 
concluded  that  we  ought  not  to  elope.  I  stayed  until  I  had  per- 
suaded her  father  to  give  her  to  me.  I  always  meant  to  write  that 
story  out  and  publish  it,  and  I  began  once ;  but  I  concluded  it  was 
not  much  of  a  story.  But  I  think  that  was  the  beginning  of  love 
with  me." 

From  an  old  Scrap-book. 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  51 

Pioneer  Superstitions 

The  minds  of  these  people  were  filled  with  superstition.  .  .  . 
If  a  dog  ran  directly  across  a  man's  path  while  he  was  hunting,  it 
was  terrible  "  luck,  "  unless  he  hooked  his  two  little  fingers  together, 
and  pulled  with  all  his  might,  until  the  dog  was  out  of  sight.  There 
were  wizards  who  took  charmed  twigs  in  their  hands,  and  made  them 
point  to  springs  of  water,  and  all  kinds  of  treasure,  beneath  the 
earth's  surface.  There  were  "faith  doctors,"  who  cured  diseases 
by  performing  mysterious  ceremonies  and  muttering  cabalistic 
words.  If  a  bird  alighted  in  a  window,  one  of  the  family  would 
speedily  die.  If  a  horse  breathed  on  a  child,  the  child  would  have 
the  whooping-cough.  Everything  must  be  done  at  certain  times 
and  seasons,  else  it  would  be  attended  with  "bad  luck."  They 
must  cut  trees  for  rails  in  the  early  part  of  the  day,  and  in  "  the  light 
of  the  moon ;"  otherwise  the  fence  would  sink.  Potatoes  and  other 
roots  were  to  be  planted  in  the  "  dark  of  the  moon, "  but  trees  and 
plants  which  bore  their  fruits  above  ground,  must  be  "put  out  in 
the  light  of  the  moon."  ....  It  was  even  required  to  make 
soap  "in  the  light  of  the  moon, "  and,  moreover,  it  must  bestirred 
only  one  way,  and  by  one  person.  Nothing  of  importance  was  to 
be  begun  on  Friday  ....  and  animals  treated  otherwise  than 
" according  to  the  signs  in  the  almanac"  were  nearly  sure  to  die. 

Such  were  the  people  among  whom  Abe  grew  to  manhood. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  44. 

How  He  Came  to  Own  Weems's  "Washington" 

Among  those  whom  Lincoln  served  in  Indiana  as  "hired  boy" 
was  Josiah  Crawford,  a  well-to-do  farmer  living  near  Gentryville. 
Mr.  Crawford  owned  a  copy  of  Weems's  "Life  of  Washington,"  a 
precious  book  in  those  days,  and  Lincoln  borrowed  it  to  read. 
"  Late  in  the  night,  before  going  to  bed,  he  placed  the  borrowed 
book  in  his  only  bookcase,  the  opening  between  two  logs  of  the 
walls  of  the  cabin,  and  retired  to  dream  of  its  contents.  During 
the  night  it  rained;  the  water  dripping  over  the  'mud-daubing' 
on  to  the  book,  stained  the  leaves  and  warped  the  binding.  Abe 
valued  the  book  in  proportion  to  the  interest  he  had  in  the  hero, 
and  felt  that  the  owner  must  value  it  beyond  his  ability  to  pay. 


52  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

It  was  with  the  greatest  trepidation  he  took  the  book  home  and  told 
the  story,  and  asked  how  he  might  hope  to  make  restitution.     Mr. 

Crawford  answered:  'Being  as  it  is  you, 
Abe,  I  won't  be  hard  on  you.  Come  over 
and  shuck  corn  three  days,  and  the  book 
is  yours. '  Shuck  corn  three  days  and 
receive  a  hero's  hfe!  He  felt  that  the 
owner  was  giving  him  a  magnificent  pres- 
ent. After  reading  the  book  he  used  to 
tell  the  Crawfords :  '  I  do  not  always  in- 
tend to  delve,  grub,  shuck  corn,  split 
'^'^^§:i^':^).-^<,.r'"''  rails,  and  the  like.'     His  whole  mind  was 

josiAH  CRAWFORD         dcvotcd   to  books,    and    he    declared    he 
("Old  Blue-Nose")  ^^^  .     -^^    ^^  ^^  himsclf  for  a  profession. ' 

With  whom  Abe  and  his  sister  lived     rr\-i  i       i  j  •  ci  i         ^ 

as  hired  man  and  maid-of-aii-work.    1  hcsc  declarations  wcrc    ottcn    made    to 

Mrs.  Crawford,  who  took  almost  a  mother's 
interest  in  him,  and  she  would  ask :  'What  do  you  want  to  be  now? ' 
His  answer  was  invariably :  'I'll  be  President. '  As  he  was  generally 
playing  a  joke  on  someone,  she  would  answer:  'You'd  make  a 
purty  President  with  all  your  tricks  and  jokes,  now,  wouldn't 
you?'  He  would  then  declare:  'Oh,  I'll  study  and  get  ready,  and 
then  the  chance  will  come.'" 

"A  Hoosier"  in  The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  62. 

"Bounding"  an  Idea -"North,  South,  East  and  West" 

All  of  his  comrades  remembered  his  stories  and  his  clearness 
in  argument.  "  When  he  appeared  in  company,  "  says  Nat  Grigsby, 
"the  boys  would  gather  and  cluster  around  him  to  hear  him  talk. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  figurative  in  his  speech,  talks  and  conversation.  He 
argued  much  from  analogy,  and  explained  things  hard  for  us  to 
imderstand,  by  stories,  maxims,  tales  and  figures.  He  would  almost 
(always  point  his  lesson  or  idea  by  some  story  that  was  plain  and 
'near  us,  that  we  might  instantly  see  the  force  and  bearing  of  what 
he  said.  "  This  ability  to  explain  clearly  and  to  illustrate  by  simple 
figures  of  speech  must  be  counted  as  the  great  mental  acquirement 
of  Lincoln's  boyhood.  It  was  a  power  which  he  gained  by  hard 
labor.  Years  later  he  related  his  experience  to  an  acquaintance  who 
had  been  surprised  by  the  lucidity  and  simplicity  of  his  speeches 
and  who  had  asked  where  he  was  educated. 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  TN  INDIANA  53 

"  I  never  went  to  school  more  than  six  months  in  my  Hfe, "  he 
said,  "out  I  can  say  this:  that  among  my  earHest  recollections  I 
remember  how,  when  a  mere  child,  I  used  to  get  irritated  when  any- 
body talked  to  me  in  a  way  I  could  not  understand.  I  do  not  think 
I  ever  got  angry  at  anything  else  in  my  life;  but  that  always  dis- 
turbed my  temper;  and  has  ever  since.  I  can  remember  going  to 
my  little  bedroom,  after  hearing  the  neighbors  talk  of  an  evening 
with  my  father,  and  spending  no  small  part  of  the  night  walking  up 
and  down  and  trying  to  make  out  what  was  the  exact  meaning  of 
some  of  their,  to  me,  dark  sayings. 

"  I  could  not  sleep,  although  I  tried  to,  when  I  got  on  such  a  hunt 
for  an  idea  until  I  had  caught  it ;  and  when  I  thought  I  had  got  it, 
I  was  not  satisfied  until  I  had  repeated  it  over  and  over ;  until  I  had 
put  it  in  language  plain  enough,  as  I  thought,  for  any  boy  I  knew  to 
comprehend.  This  was  a  kind  of  passion  with  me,  and  it  has  stuck 
by  me;  for  I  am  never  easy  now,  when  I  am  handling  a  thought, 
till  I  have  bounded  it  north,  and  bounded  it  south,  and  bounded  it 
east,  and  bounded  it  west.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  43. 

« 

Knocked  Down  for  Being  "  Forward " 

Thomas  Lincoln  loved  his  children,  but  he  had  a  Spartan  way 
of  concealing  the  fact — especially  toward  his  son.  He  considered  the 
time  wasted  that  Abe  spent  in  study.  It  was  a  sign  of  "laziness.  " 
It  was  through  the  stepmother's  influence  with  his  father  that  Abe 
was  permitted  to  read  as  much  as  he  did.  The  boy  had  such  a 
thirst  for  knowledge  that  it  is  doubtful  if  his  father  could  have 
prevented  Abe's  reading  if  he  had  tried  harder  to  stop  it. 

Though  bashful  with  women,  Abraham  was  free  and  easy  with 
those  of  his  own  sex.  Dennis  Hanks  tells  that  Abe  was  always 
ready  with  an  answer,  whether  addressed  or  not.  Sometimes  he 
would  engage  in  long  discussions  with  passing  strangers.  His 
father  had  doubtless  heard  of  his  wasting  his  employers '  time  and 
hindering  the  other  help  by  telling  stories  and  making  speeches. 
Thomas  Lincoln  naturally  felt  called  upon  to  discourage  this  "  for- 
ward" spirit,  for  Dennis  relates  that  his  father  once  knocked  Abe 
down  off  the  fence  which  he  had  mounted  to  answer  the  question 


54  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

of  a  passer-by.     Thomas  Lincoln  did  not  live  to  see  his  son  achieve 
much  more  than  local  renown. 

Part  of  a  Clipping  from  a  Scrap-book. 

Sports  and  Amusements 

Of  course  the  boys  hunted.  Not  that  Abraham  ever  became  a 
true  sportsman;  indeed,  he  seems  to  have  lacked  the  genuine 
sporting  instinct.  In  k  curious  autobiography,  written  entirely  in 
the  third  person,  which  Mr.  Lincoln  prepared  at  the  request  of  a 
friend  in  i860,  he  says  of  his  exploits  as  a  himter: 

"A  few  days  before  the  completion  of  his  eighth  year,  in  the 
absence  of  his  father,  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  approached  the  new 
log  cabin;  and  Abraham,  with  a  rifle  gun,  standing  inside,  shot 
through  a  crack  and  killed  one  of  them.  He  has  never  since  pulled 
the  trigger  on  any  larger  game.  " 

But  there  were  many  other  country  sports  which  he  enjoyed  to 
the  full.  He  went  swimming  in  the  evenings,  fished  with  the  other 
boys  in  Pigeon  Creek,  and  caught  chubs  and  suckers  enough  to 
delight  any  boy ;  he  wrestled  and  jumped  and  ran  races  at  the  noon 
rests.  He  was  present  at  every  country  horse-race  and  fox-chase. 
The  sports  he  preferred  were  those  that  brought  men  together: 
the  spelling-school,  the  husking-bee,  the  "raising;"  and  of  all  these 
he  w^as  the  life  by  his  wit,  his  stories,  his  good  nature,  his  doggerel 
verses,  his  practical  jokes,  and  by  a  rough  kind. of  politeness.  .  .  . 
Mrs.  Crawford,  at  whose  home  he  worked  some  time,  declared  that 
he  always  lifted  his  hat  and  bowed  when  he  made  his  appearance. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  rough  gallantry  among  the  young  people ; 
and  Lincoln's  old  friends  in  Indiana  have  left  many  tales  of  how 
he  "  went  to  see  the  girls,  "  of  how  he  brought  in  the  biggest  backlog 
and  made  the  brightest  fire ;  then  of  how  the  young  people,  sitting 
around  it,  watching  the  way  the  sparks  flew,  told  their  fortunes.  He 
helped  pare  apples,  shell  corn,  and  crack  nuts.  He  took  the  girls 
to  meeting  and  to  spelling-school,  though  he  was  not  often  allowed 
to  take  part  in  the  spelling  match,  for  the  one  w^ho  "chose  first" 
always  chose  "Abe  Lincoln, "  and  that  was  equivalent  to  winning, 
as  the  others  knew  that  "he  would  stand  up  the  longest.  " 

Xht  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  89. 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  55 

An  Interrupted  Sentence 

No  feature  of  his  backwoods  life  pleased  Abe  so  well  as  going 
to  mill.  It  released  him  from  a  day's  work  in  the  woods,  besides 
affording  him  a  much  desired  opportunity  to  watch  the  movement 
of  the  mill's  primitive*  and  cumbersome  machinery.  It  was  on 
many  of  these  trips  that  David  Turnham  accompanied  him.  In 
later  years  Mr.  Lincoln  related  the  following  reminiscence  of  his 
experience  as  a  miller  in  Indiana.  One  day,  taking  a  bag  of  corn, 
he  mounted  the  old  flea-bitten  gray  mare  and  rode  leisurely  to 
Gordon's  mill.  Arriving  somewhat  late,  his  turn  did  not  come  till 
almost  sundown.  In  obedience  to  the  usual  custom  requiring  each 
man  to  furnish  his  own  power  he  hitched  the  old  mare  to  the  arm, 
and  as  the  animal  moved  around,  the  machinery  responded  with 
equal  speed.  Abe  was  mounted  on  the  arm,  and  at  frequent  inter- 
vals made  use  of  his  whip  to  urge  the  animal  on  to  better  speed. 
With  a  careless  "Get  up,  you  old  hussy,"  he  applied  the  lash  at 
each  revolution  of  the  arm.  In  the  midst  of  the  exclamation,  or 
just  as  half  of  it  had  escaped  through  his  teeth,  the  old  jade,  resent- 
ing the  continued  use  of  the  goad,  elevated  her  shoeless  hoof  and, 
striking  the  young  engineer  in  the  forehead,  sent  him  sprawling  to 
the  earth.  Miller  Gordon  hurried  in,  picked  up  the  bleeding, 
senseless  boy,  whom  he  took  for  dead,  and  at  once  sent  for  his  father. 
Old  Thomas  Lincoln  came— came  as  soon  as  embodied  listlessness 
could  move — loaded  the  lifeless  boy  in  a  wagon  and  drove  home. 
Abe  lay  unconscious  all  night,  but  towards  break  of  day  the  atten- 
dants noticed  signs  of  returning  consciousness.  The  blood  begin- 
ning to  flow  normally,  his  tongue  struggled  to  loose  itself,  his  frame 
jerked  for  an  instant,  and  he  awoke,  blurting  out  the  words,  "you 
old  hussy/"  or  the  latter  half  of  the  sentence  interrupted  by  the 
mare's  heel  at  the  mill. 

Mr.  Lincoln  considered  this  one  of  the  remarkable  incidents  of 
his  life.  He  often  referred  to  it,  and  we  had  many  discussions  in 
our  law  office  over  the  psychological  phenomena  involved  in  the 
operation.  Without  expressing  my  own  views  I  may  say  that  his 
idea  was  that  the  latter  half  of  the  expression,  "Get  up,  you  old 
hussy,"  was  cut  off  by  a  suspension  of  the  normal  flow  of  his 
mental  energy,  and  that  as  soon  as  life's  forces  returned  he  uncon- 
sciously ended  the  sentence ;  or,  as  he  in  plainer  figure  put  it :  "  Just 


56  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

before  I  struck  the  old  mare  m}''  will  through  the  mind  had  set  the 
muscles  of  my  tongue  to  utter  the  expression,  and  when  her  heels 
came  in  contact  with  my  head  the  whole  thing  stopped  half-cocked, 
as  it  were,  and  was  only  fired  off  when  mental  energy  or  force 
returned." 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  50. 

Influences  and  Impressions 

The  only  outside  influence  which  directed  and  stimulated  him 
in  these  ambitions  was  that  coming  first  from  his  mother,  then  from 
his  stepmother.  These  two  women,  both  of  them  of  unusual 
earnestness  and  sweetness  of  spirit,  were  one  or  the  other  of  them 
at  his  side  throughout  his  youth  and  young  manhood.  The  ideal 
they  held  before  him  was  the  simple  ideal  of  the  early  American,  that 
if  a  boy  is  upright  and  industrious  he  may  aspire  to  any  place  within 
the  gift  of  the  country.  The  boy's  instinct  told  him  they  were 
right.  Everything  he  read  confirmed  their  teachings,  and  he  culti- 
vated, in  every  way  open  to  him,  his  passion  to  know  and  be  some- 
thing. His  zeal  in  study,  his  ambition  to  excel  made  their  impres- 
sion on  his  acquaintances.  Even  then  they  pointed  him  out  as  a 
boy  who  would  "make  something"  of  himself.  In  1865,  thirty- 
five  years  after  he  left  Gentryville,  Wm.  H.  Herndon,  for  many 
years  a  law  partner  of  Lincoln,  anxious  to  save  all  that  was  known 
of  Lincoln  in  Indiana,  went  among  his  old  associates,  and  with  a 
sincerity  and  thoroughness  worthy  of  grateful  respect,  interviewed 
them.  At  that  time  there  were  still  living  numbers  of  the  people 
with  whom  Lincoln  had  been  brought  up.  They  all  remembered 
something  of  him.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  all  these  people  tell  of 
his  doing  something  different  from  what  other  boys  did,  something 
sufficiently  superior  to  have  made  a  keen  impression  upon  them. 
In  almost  every  case  each  person  had  his  own  special  reason  for 
admiring  Lincoln.  A  facility  in  making  rhymes  and  wTiting  essays 
was  the  admiration  of  many,  who  considered  it  the  more  remarkable 
because  "essays  and  poetry  were  not  taught  in  school. "       .... 

Many  others  were  struck  by  the  clever  application  he  made 
of  this  gift  for  expression.  At  one  period  he  was  employed  as 
a  "hand"  by  a  farmer  who  treated  him  unfairly.  Lincoln  took  a 
revenge  unheard  of  in  Gentryville.  He  wrote  doggerel  rhymes 
about  his  employer's  nose — a  long  and  crooked  feature  about  which 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN  INDIANA  57 


the  owner  was  very  sensitive.  The  wit  he  showed  in  taking  revenge 
for  a  social  sHght  by  a  satire  on  the  Grigsbys,  who  had  failed  to 
invite  him  to  a  wedding,  made  a  lasting  impression  in  Gentryville. 
That  he  should  write  so  well  as  to  be  able  to  humiliate  his  enemies 
more  deeply  than  if  he  had  resorted  to  the  method  of  taking  revenge 
current  in  the  country,  and  thrashed  them,  seemed  to  his  friends  a 

mark  of  surprising  superiority 

Very  many  of  his  old  neighbors  recalled  his  reading  habits  and 
how  well  stored  his  mind  was  with  information.  His  explanations 
of  natural  phenomena  were  so  familiar  to  his  companions  that  he 
sometimes  was  jeered  at  for  them,  though  as  a  rule  his  listeners  were 
sympathetic,  taking  a  certain  pride  in  the  fact  that  one  of  their 
number  knew  as  much  as  Lincoln  did.  "  He  was  better  read  than 
the  world  knows  or  is  likely  to  know  exactly,  "  said  one  old  acquaint- 
ance. "  He  often  and  often  commented  or  talked  to  me  about  what 
he  had  read — seemed  to  read  it  out  of  the  book  as  he  went  along — • 
did  so  with  others.  He  was  the  learned  boy  among  us  unlearned 
folks.  He  took  great  pains  to  explain ;  could  do  it  so  simply.  He 
was  diffident,  then,  too." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  40. 

Hired  Man  Where  His  Sister  Was  Maid-of-All-Work 

The  Crawford  family  was  rich  in  the  possession  of  several  books, 
which  Abe  read  through  time  and  again,  according  to  his  usual 
custom.  One  of  them  was  the  "  Kentucky  Preceptor,  "  from  which 
Mrs.  Crawford  insists  that  he  "learned  his  school  orations,  speeches, 
and  pieces  to  write."     She  tells  us  also  that  "Abe  was  a  sensitive 

lad,  never  coming  where  he  was  not  wanted;" and  that 

"  he  was  tender  and  kind,  "  like  his  sister,  who  was  at  the  same  time 
her  maid-of -all -work 

It  is  likely  that  Abe  was  reconciled  to  his  situation  in  this 
■family  by  the  presence  of  his  sister,  and  the  opportunity  it  gave  him 
|of  being  in  the  company  of  Mrs.   Crawford,   for  whom  he  had  a 

genuine  attachment After  meals  he  "  hung  about,  " 

lingered  long  to  gossip  and  joke  with  the  women ;  and  these  pleasant, 
stolen  confidences  were  generally  broken  up  with  the  exclamation, 

"Well,  this  won't  buy  the  child  a  coat!"  and  the  long-legged 
hired  boy  would  stride  away  to  join  his  master. 

In  the  meantime  Abe  had  become,  not  only  the  longest,  but 


5S 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


the  strongest,  man  in  the  settlement.  Some  of  his  feats  almost 
surpass  belief,  and  those  who  beheld  them  with  their  own  eyes  stood 
literally  amazed.  Richardson,  a  neighbor,  declares  that  he  could 
carry  a  load  to  which  the  strength  of  "three  ordinary  men"  would 
scarcely  be  equal.  He  saw  him  quietly  pick  up  and  walk  away  with 
"a  chicken  house,  made  up  of  poles  pinned  together,  and  covered, 
that  weighed  at  least  six  hundred,  if  not  much  more.  "  At  another 
time  the  Richardsons  were  building  a  corn-crib ;  Abe  was  there, 
and,  seeing  three  or  four  men  preparing  "sticks"  upon  which  to 
carry  some  huge  posts,  he  relieved  them  of  all  further  trouble  by 


THE  CRAWFORD  FARM-HOUSE 

Abe  did  not  like  Josiah  Crawford,  ("Old  Blue  Nose,")  but  he  "was  reconciled  to  his  situation 
in  this  family  by  the  presence  of  his  sister." 

shouldering  the  posts,  single-handed,  and  walking  away  with  them 
to  the  place  where  they  were  wanted.  "  He  could  strike  with  a 
maul,  "  says  old  Mr.  Wood,  "  a  heavier  blow  than  any  man.  .  .  . 
He  could  sink  an  ax  deeper  into  wood  than  any  man  I  ever  saw. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  so. 

From  Ferryman  to  Butcher 

In  1825  Abraham  was  employed  by  James  Taylor,  who  lived  at 
the  mouth  of  Anderson's  Creek     He  was  paid  six  dollars  a  month, 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  59 


and  remained  for  nine  months.  His  principal  business  was  the 
management  of  a  ferry-boat  which  Mr.  Taylor  had  plying  across 
the  Ohio,  as  well  as  Anderson's  Creek.  But,  in  addition  to  this,  he 
was  required  to  do  all  sorts  of  farm- work,  and  even  to  perform  some 
menial  services  about  the  house.  He  was  hostler,  ploughman 
and  ferryman  out  of  doors,  and  man-of -all-work  within  doors.  He 
ground  corn  with  a  hand-mill,  or  "grated"  It  when  too  young  to  be 
ground ;  rose  early,  built  fires,  put  on  the  water  in  the  kitchen, 
"fixed  around  generally,"  and  had  things  prepared  for  cooking 
before  the  mistress  of  the  house  was  stirring.  He  slept  upstairs 
with  young  Green  Taylor,  who  says  that  he  usually  read  "till  near 
midnight, "  notwithstanding  the  necessity  for  being  out  of  his  bed 
before  day.  Green  was  somewhat  disposed  to  ill-use  the  poor  hired 
boy,  and  once  struck  him  with  an  ear  of  hard  corn,  and  cut  a  deep 
gash  over  his  eye.  He  makes  no  comment  upon  this  ungenerous 
act,  except  that  "  Abe  got  mad,  "  but  did  not  thrash  him. 

Abe  was  a  hand  much  in  demand  in  "hog-killing  time. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Li-ncoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  49. 

One  day,  on  being  asked  to  kill  a  hog,  he  replied  like  the  Irish- 
man with  the  violin,  "  that  he  had  never  done  it,  but  he  would  try. " 

"  If  you  will  risk  the  hog,  "  he  said,  "  I  will  risk  myself ! " 

Becoming  hog-slaughterer  added  this  branch  occupation  to  the 
many  of  "the  man-of -all-work. "  Taylor  sub-let  him  out  in  this 
capacity  for  thirty  cents  a  day,  saying : 

"  Abe  will  do  one  thing  about  as  well  as  another. " 

The  Lincoln  Story  Book,  Henry  L.  Williams,  page  1 2. 

A  Feat  of  Mercy  and  Strength 

John  Baldwin,  the  blacksmith,  was  one  of  Abe's  special  friends 
from  his  boyhood  onward.  Baldwin  was  a  story-teller  and  a  joker 
of  rare  accomplishments ;  and  Abe,  when  a  .  .  .  .  little  fellow,  would 
slip  off  to  his  shop  and  sit  and  listen  to  him  by  the  hour.  As  he 
grew  up,  the  practice  continued  as  of  old,  except  that  Abe  soon 
began  to  exchange  anecdotes  with  his  clever  friend  at  the  anvil. 
Dennis  Hanks  says  Baldwin  was  his  "particular  friend,"  and  that 
"  Ab^  spent  a  great  deal  of  his  leisure  time  with  him.  "  Statesmen, 
plenipotentiaries,  famous  commanders,  have  many  times  made  the 
White  House  at  Washington  ring  with  their  laughter  over  the  quaint 


6o  THE  STORV-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

tales  of  John  Baldwin,  the  blacksmith,  delivered  second-hand  by 
his  inimitable  friend  Lincoln. 

Abe  and  Dave  Turnham  had  one  day  been  threshing  wheat, — 
probably  for  Turnham's  father, — and  concluded  to  spend  the  eve- 
ning at  Gentry ville.  They  lingered  there  until  late  in  the  night, 
when,  wending  their  way  along  the  road  toward  Lincoln's  cabin, 
they  espied  soinething  resembling  a  man  lying  dead  or  insensible 
by  the  side  of  a  mud-puddle.  They  rolled  the  sleeper  over,  and 
found  in  him  an  old  and  quite  respectable  acquaintance,  hopelessly 
drunk.  All  efforts  failed  to  rouse  him  to  any  exertion  on  his  own 
behalf.  Abe's  companions  were  disposed  to  let  him  lie  in  the  bed 
he  had  made  for  himself ;  but,  as  the  night  was  cold  and  dreary,  he 
must  have  frozen  to  death  had  this  inhuman  proposition  been 
equally  agreeable  to  everybody  present.  To  Abe  it  seemed  utterly 
monstrous ;  and,  seeing  he  was  to  haye  no  help,  he  bent  his  mighty 
frame,  and,  taking  the  big  man  in  his  long  arms,  carried  him  a  great 
distance  to  Dennis  Hanks's  cabin.  There  he  built  a  fire,  warmed, 
rubbed,  and  nursed  him  through  the  entire  night, — his  companions 
of  the  road  having  left  him  alone  in  his  merciful  task.  The  man 
often  told  John  Hanks  that  it  was  "mighty  clever  in  Abe  to  tote 
me  to  a  warm  fire  that  cold  night, "  and  was  very  sure  that  Abe's 
strength  and  benevolence  had  saved  his  life. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  57. 

How  the  Lad  Worked  and  Studied 

It  will  always  be  a  matter  of  wonder.  .  .  that,  from  such 
restricted  and  unpromising  opportunities  in  early  life,  Mr.  Lincoln 
grew  into  the  great  man  he  was.  The  foundation  of  his  education 
was  laid  in  Indiana  .  .  .  [where]  he  gave  evidence  of  a  nature 
and  characteristics  that  distinguished  him  from  every  associate 
and  surrounding  he  had.  He  was  not  peculiar  or  eccentric,  and 
yet  a  shrewd  observer  would  have  seen  that  he  was  decidedly 
unique  and  original.  Although  imbued  with  a  marked  dislike  for 
manual  labor,  it  cannot  be  truthfully  said  of  him  that  he  was  indo- 
lent. From  a  mental  standpoint  he  was  one  of  the  most  energetic 
young  men  of  his  day.  He  dwelt  altogether  in  the  land  of  thought. 
His  deep  meditation  and  abstraction  easily  induced  the  belief  among 
his  horny-handed  companions  that  he  was  lazy.  In  fact,  a  neighbor, 
John  Romine,  makes  that  charge. 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA 


6i 


"He  worked  for  me,"  testifies  the  latter,  "but  was  always 
reading  and  thinking.  I  used  to  get  mad  at  him  for  it.  I  say  he 
was  awful  lazy.  He  would  laugh  and  talk — crack  his  jokes  and 
tell  stories  all  the  time;  didn't  love  work  half  as  much  as  his  pay. 
He  said  to  me  one  day  that  his  father  taught  him  to  work;  but 
he  never  taught  him  to  love  it. " 

His  chief  delight  during  the  day,  if  unmolested,  was  to  lie  down 
under  the  shade  of  some  inviting  tree  to  read  and  study.     At  night, 


Lying  on  his  stomach  in  front  of  the  open  fireplace. 

lying  on  his  stomach  in  front  of  the  open  fireplace,  with  a  piece  of 
charcoal  he  would  cipher  on  a  broad  wooden  shovel.  When  the 
latter  was  covered  over  on  both  sides  he  would  take  his  father's 
dr  awing-knif e  or  plane  and  shave  it  off  clean,  ready  for  a  fresh  supply 
of  inscriptions  the  next  day.  He  often  moved  about  the  cabin  with 
a  piece  of  chalk,  writing  and  ciphering  on  boards  and  the  flat  sides 


(52  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

of  hewn  logs.  When  every  bare  wooden  surface  had  been  filled 
with  his  letters  and  ciphers  he  would  erase  them  and  begin  anew. 
Thus  it  was  always ;  and  the  boy  whom  dull  old  Thomas  Lincoln  and 
rustic  John  Romine  conceived  to  be  lazy  was  in  reality  the  most 
tireless  w^orker  in  all  the  region  around  Gentryville.  His  step- 
mother told  me  he  devoured  everything  in  the  book  line  within  his 
reach.  If  in  his  reading  he  came  across  anything  that  pleased  his 
fancy,  he  entered  it  down  in  a  copy-book — a  sort  of  repository  in 
which  he  was  wont  to  store  everything  worthy  of  preservation. 

"  Frequently,  "  relates  his  stepmother,  "  he  had  no  paper  to  write 
his  pieces  down  on.  Then  he  would  put  them  in  chalk  on  a  board 
or  plank,  sometimes  only  making  a  few  signs  of  what  he  intended  to 
write.  When  he  got  paper  he  would  copy  them,  always  bringing 
them  to  me  and  reading  them.  He  would  ask  my  opinion  to 
what  he  had  read,  and  often  explained  things  to  me  in  his  plain 
language. " 

He  kept  the  Bible  and  "^sop's  Fables"  always  within  reach, 
and  read  them  over  and  over  again.  These  two  volumes  furnished 
him  with  the  many  figures  of  speech  and  parables  which  he  used 
with  such  happy  effect  in  his  later  and  public  utterances 

No  one  had  a  more  retentive  memory.  If  he  read  or  heard  a 
good  thing  it  never  escaped  him.  His  powers  of  concentration  were 
intense.  .  .  .  His  thoughtful  and  investigating  mind  dug  down 
after  ideas,  and  never  stopped  till  bottom  facts  were  reached.  With 
such  a  mental  equipment  the  day  was  destined  to  come  when  the 
world  would  need  the  services  of  his  intellect  and  heart.  That  he 
was  equal  to  the  great  task  when  the  demand  came  is  but  another 
striking  proof  of  the  grandeur  of  his  character. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  38. 

President  Lincoln's  Story  of  His  First  Dollar 

Note. — This  oft-told  story  can  not  be  exactly  as  Lincoln  related  it,  for  the  family  never  raised 
produce  enough  to   take  down  the  river  to  sell. — W.  W. 

"Sew^ard, "  he  said,  "did  you  ever  hear  how  I  earned  my  first 
dollar?" 

"No,"  I  replied. 

"Well,"  replied  he,  "I  was  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  and 
belonged,  as  you  know,  to  what  they  called  down  South  the  'scrubs ' ; 
people  who  do  not  own  land  and  slaves,  and  are  nobody  there ;  but 
we  had  succeeded  in  raising,  chiefly  by  my  labor,  sufficient  produce, 


FOURTEEN  YEARS  IN  INDIANA  63 

as  I  thought,  to  justify  me  in  taking  it  down  the  river  to  sell.  After 
much  persuasion  I  had  got  the  consent  of  my  mother  to  go,  and  had 
constructed  a  fiatboat  large  enough  to  take  the  few  barrels  of  things 
we  had  gathered  to  New  Orleans.  A  steamer  was  going  down  the 
river.  We  have,  you  know,  no  wharves  on  the  western  streams, 
and  the  custom  was,  if  passengers  were  at  any  of  the  landings  they 
were  to  go  out  in  a  boat,  the  steamer  stopping,  and  taking  them  on 
board.  I  was  contemplating  my  new  boat,  and  wondering  whether 
I  could  make  it  stronger  or  improve  it  in  any  part,  when  two  men 
with  trunks  came  down  to  the  shore  in  carriages,  and  looking  at  the 
different  boats,  singled  out  mine,  and  asked,  'Who  owns  this?'  I 
answered  modestly,  '  I  do. '  '  Will  you, '  said  one  of  them,  '  take  us 
and  our  trunks  out  to  the  steamer?'  'Certainly,'  said  I.  I  was 
very  glad  to  have  the  chance  of  earning  something,  and  supposed 
that  both  of  them  would  give  me  a  couple  of  'bits.'  The  trunks 
were  put  in  my  boat,  the  passengers  seated  themselves  on  them, 
and  I  sculled  them  out  to  the  steamer.  They  got  on  board,  and  I 
lifted  the  trunks  and  put  them  on  the  deck.  The  steamer  was  about 
to  put  on  steam  again,  when  I  called  out,  'You  have  forgotten  to  pay 
me. '  Each  of  them  took  from  his  pocket  a  silver  half-dollar  and 
threw  it  on  the  bottom  of  my  boat.  I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes 
as  I  picked  up  the  money.  You  may  think  it  was  a  very  little 
thing,  and  in  these  days  it  seems  to  me  like  a  trifle,  but  it  was  a  most 
important  incident  in  my  life.  I  could  scarcely  credit  that  I,  the 
poor  boy,  had  earned  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day:  that  by  honest 
work  I  had  earned  a  dollar.  I  was  a  more  hopeful  and  thoughtful 
boy  from  that  time.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln,  His  Life  and  Public  Services,  Mrs.  P.  A.  Hanaford,  page  156, 

Early  Death  of  Lincoln's  Sister 

Abraham's  sister  Nancy,  or  Sarah,  as  she  was  sometimes 
called,  was  warmly  attached  to  her  brother,  "It  is  said  that  her 
face  somewhat  resembled  his.  In  repose  it  had  the  gravity  which 
they  both,  perhaps,  inherited  from  their  mother,  but  it  was  capable 
of  being  lighted  almost  into  beauty  by  one  of  Abe's  ridiculous 
stories  or  rapturous  sallies  of  humor.  She  was  a  modest,  plain, 
industrious  girl,  and  is  kindly  remembered  by  all  who  knew  her. 
She  was  married  to  Aaron  Grigsby  at  eighteen,  and  died  a  year 
after.     Like  Abe,  she  occasionally  worked  out  at  the  houses  of  the 


64  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  TJNCOLX 

neighbors.     She  Hes  buried,  not  with  her  mother,  but  in  the  yard 
of  the  old  Pigeon  Creek  Meeting-house.  " 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  71. 

Once  When  Abe  Didn't  Allow  Fair  Play 

One  quarrel,  however,  waxed  so  hot  that,  by  common  consent, 
nothing  would  cool  the  fevered  situation  but  blood-letting.  And 
this  is  how  it  happened.  Abraham's  only  sister  had  died  shortly 
after  marriage  to  Aaron  Grigsby.  Thereupon  arose  between  the 
Grigsbys  and  the  Lincolns  a  feeling  of  ill-will,  the  cause  of  which  is 
not  clear,  nor  is  it  material  now.  It  was  important  enough  then  to 
result  in  the  exclusion  of  the  tall  young  brother-in-law  from  the 
joint  wedding  celebration  of  Aaron's  two  brothers — a  memorable 
entertainment,  full  to  overflowing  with  feasting,  dancing,  and  merry- 
making. Such  a  frolic  was  not  to  be  had  every  day,  and  Abraham's 
regret  that  he  was  not  present  to  lead  the  fun,  as  was  his  wont, 
must  have  been  keen.  The  slight  vexed  him  even  more  than  did 
the  disappointment,  for  the  Grigsbys  constituted  "the  leading 
family"  in  the  community.  To  punish  them,  he  forthwith  wrote 
"The  First  Chronicles  of  Reuben,"  a  narration  in  mock-scriptural 
phrase,  of  an  indelicate  prank  that  is  said  to  have  been  played  upon 
the  young  wedded  couples,  at  his  instigation.  The  public  ridicule 
which  this  brought  down  upon  the  family  failed  to  appease  the 
satirist's  wounded  self-love;  and  he  followed  it,  in  rhyme,  with  an 
onslaught  even  more  stinging.  The  outraged  honor  of  the  Grigsbys 
demanded  satisfaction  according  to  the  Pigeon  Creek  code;  so  the 
eldest  son,  William,  throwing  discretion  to  the  winds,  issued  a 
challenge  for  a  fight,  which  their  tormentor  readily  accepted. 

When  the  combatants  were  about  to  enter  the  ring,  Abraham 
chivalrously  announced  that  as  his  antagonist  was  confessedly  his 
inferior  in  every  respect,  he  w^ould  forego  the  pleasure  of  thrashing 
him,  and  would  let  his  stepbrother,  John,  do  battle  in  his  stead. 
This  offer,  having,  together  w4th  other  magnanimous  declarations, 
been  applauded  by  the  spectators,  was  accepted  by  Grigsby.  The 
fight  then  began;  but,  alas!  for  Abraham's  good  resolutions.  They 
were  not  proof  against  his  champion's  defeat.  By  a  singular  co-in- 
cidence, moreover,  Lincoln's  biographers,  as  well  as  he,  deviate  just 
a  trifle,  at  this  point,  from  the  straight  course,  that  is  to  say,  all  of 
fchem  save  Mr.  Lamon,  who  sticks  to  his  text,  and,  in  the  face  of 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN   INDIANA  65 

popular  disapproval,  describes  the  unworthy  scene  which  ensued. 
"John  started  out  with  fine  pluck  and  spirit,"  says  he,  "but  in  a 
little  while  Billy  got  in  some  clever  hits,  and  Abe  began  to  exhibit 
symptoms  of  great  uneasiness.  Another  pass  or  two,  and  John 
flagged  quite  decidedly,  and  it  became  evident  that  Abe  was  anxiously 
casting  about  for  some  pretext  to  break  the  ring.  At  length,  when 
John  was  fairly  down  and  Billy  on  top,  and  all  the  spectators  cheer- 
ing, swearing,  and  pressing  up  to  the  very  edge  of  the  ring,  Abe 
cried  out  that  Bill  Boland  showed  foul  play,  and  bursting  out  of  the 
crowd,  seized  Grigsby  by  the  heels,  and  flung  him  off.  Having 
righted  John  and  cleared  the  battle-ground  of  all  opponents,  he 
swung  a  whiskey  bottle  over  his  head,  and  swore  that  he  was  'the 
big  buck  of  the  lick. '  It  seems  that  nobody  of  the  Grigsby  faction, 
not  one  in  that  large  assembly  of  bullies,  cared  to  encounter  the 
sweep  of  Abe's  tremendously  long  and  muscular  arms,  and  so  he 
remained  master  of  '.the  lick. '  He  was  not  content,  however,  with 
a  naked  triumph,  but  vaunted  himself  in  the  most  offensive  manner. 
He  singled  out  the  victorious  but  cheated  Billy  and,  making  sundry 
hostile  demonstrations,  declared  that  he  could  whip  him  then  and 
there.  Billy  meekly  said  he  did  not  doubt  that,  but  that  if  Abe 
would  make  things  even  between  them  by  fighting  with  pistols,  he 
would  not  be  slow  to  grant  him  a  meeting.  But  Abe  replied  that 
he  was  not  going  to  fool  away  his  life  on  a  single  shot ;  and  so  Billy 
was  fain  to  put  up  with  the  poor  satisfaction  he  had  already  re- 
ceived. "  The  question  naturally  suggested,  as  to  whether  Abraham 
was  justified  in  his  behavior,  may  be  disregarded  here.  Not  so 
the  account  of  the  incident  itself,  which,  irrespective  of  ethics  or 
good  taste,  is  essential  to  an  understanding  of  what  may  be  termed 
the  aggressive  side  of  his  character,  during  these  formative  days. 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  15. 

In  Jones's  Grocery  Store  and  on  the  Stump 

No  newspaper  ever  escaped  him.  One  man  in  Gentryville, 
Mr.  Jones,  the  storekeeper,  took  a  Louisville  paper,  and  here  Lincoln 
went  regularly  to  read  and  discuss  its  contents.  All  the  men  and 
boys  of  the  neighborhood  gathered  there,  and  everything  which  the 
paper  related  was  subjected  to  their  keen,  shrewd  common  sense. 
It  was  not  long  before  young  Lincoln  became  the  favorite  member 
of  the  group,  the  one  listened  to  most  respectfully.     Politics  were 


66  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

warmly  discussed  by  these  Gentryville  citizens,  and  it  may  be  that 
sitting  on  the  counter  of  Jones's  grocery  Lincoln  even  argued  on 
slavery.  It  certainly  was  one  of  the  live  questions  in  Indiana  at 
that  date 

Lincoln  was  not  only  winning  in  these  days  in  the  Jones  grocery 
store  a  reputation  as  a  talker  and  story-teller;  he  was  becoming 
known  as  a  backwoods  orator.  He  could  repeat  with  effect  all  the 
poems  and  speeches  in  his  various  school-readers,  he  could  imitate 
to  perfection  the  wandering  preachers  who  came  to  Gentryville,  and 
he  could  make  a  political  speech  so  stirring  that  he  drew  a  crowd 
about  him  every  time  he  mounted  a  stump.  The  applause  he  won 
was  sweet;  and  frequently  he  indulged  his  gifts  when  he  ought  to 
have  been  at  work — so  thought  his  employers  and  Thomas  his 
father.  It  was  trying,  no  doubt,  to  the  hard-pushed  farmers,  to 
see  the  men  who  ought  to  have  been  cutting  grass  or  chopping  wood 
throw  down  their  sickles  or  axes  and  group  around  a  boy,  whenever 
he  mounted  a  stump  to  develop  a  pet  theory  or  repeat  with  varia- 
tions yesterday's  sermon.  In  his  fondness  for  speech-making  he 
attended  all  the  trials  of  the  neighborhood,  and  frequently  walked 
fifteen  miles  to  Eoonville  to  attend  court. 

He  wrote  as  well  as  spoke,  and  some  of  his  productions  were 
even  printed,  through  the  influence  of  his  admiring  neighbors. 
Thus  a  local  Baptist  preacher  was  so  struck  with  one  of  Abraham's 
essays  on  temperance  that  he  sent  it  to  Ohio,  where  it  appeared  in 
some  paper.  Another  article,  on  "National  Politics,"  so  pleased  a 
lawyer  of  the  vicinity  that  he  declared  the  "  world  couldn't  beat  it.  '* 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  72. 

A  Murder-Case  at  Boonville 

One  day  a  man  was  on  trial  for  murder,  and  had  secured  for  his 
defense  a  lawyer  of  more  than  common  ability  named  John  Brecken- 
ridge.  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  exceedingly  interested  in  the 
case  from  the  beginning;  but  when  the  time  came  for  the  prisoner's 
counsel  to  speak  in  his  defense,  there  was  a  surprise  prepared  for  the 
young  Gentryville  debater.  He  had  never,  until  that  day,  listened 
to  a  really  good  argument,  delivered  by  a  man  of  learning  and 
eloquence,  but  he  had  prepared  himself  to  know  and  profit  by  such 
an  experience  when  it  came  to  him.     He  listened  as  if  he  had  him- 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN  INDIANA  67 


self  been  the  prisoner  whose  life  depended  upon  the  success  of  Mr. 
Breckenridge  in  persuading  the  jury  of  his  innocence 

Abraham  Lincoln  learned  much  from  the  great  speech ;  but  he 
had  yet  a  deep  and  bitter  lesson  to  receive  that  day.  The  lines  of 
social  caste  were  somewhat  rigidly  drawn  at  that  time.  A  leading 
lawyer  of  good  family  Hke  Mr.  Breckenridge  was  a  "gentleman," 
and  a  species  of  great  man  not  to  be  carelessly  addressed  by  half- 
clad  boors  from  the  new  settlements.  ^ 

Abe  forgot  all  that;  perhaps  not  knowing  it  very  well.  He 
could  not  repress  his  enthusiasm  over  that  magnificent  appeal  to 
the  judge  and  jury.  The  last  sentence  of  the  speech  had  hardly 
died  away  before  he  was  pushing  through  the  throng  towards  the 
gifted  orator.  Mr.  Breckenridge  was  walking  grandly  out  of  the 
court-room,  when  there  stood  in  his  path  a  gigantic,  solemn-visaged, 
beardless  clodhopper,  reaching  out  a  long  coatless  arm,  with  an 
immense  hard  liand  at  the  end  of  it,  while  an  agitated  voice  ex- 
pressed the  heartiest  commendation  of  the  ability  and  eloquence  of 
his  plea  for  his  client. 

Breckenridge  was  a  small -souled  man  in  spite  of  his  mental 
power  and  his  training,  for  he  did  but  glance  in  proud  amazement 
at  the  shabby,  presumptuous  boy,  and  then  pass  stupidly  on  ^vithout 
speaking.  He  had  imparted  priceless  instruction  to  a  fellow  who 
had  yet  but  a  faint  perception  of  the  artificial  barriers  before  him. 

The  two  met  again,  at  the  city  of  Washington,  in  the  year  1862, 
under  other  circumstances,  and  then  the  President  of  the  United 
States  again  compHmented  Mr.  Breckenridge  upon  the  excellence 
of  his  speech  in  the  Indiana  murder-case. 

Abraham  Lincoln:   The  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  57. 

"Tell  Us  How  Many  Short  Breaths  He  Drew!" 

There  are  many  proofs  that  he  was  an  authority  on  all  subjects, 
even  the  country  jockeys  bringing  him  their  stories  and  seeking  to  in- 
spire his  enthusiasm.  Captain  John  Lamar,  of  Gentry ville,  who  was 
a  small  boy  in  the  neighborhood  when  Lincoln  was  a  young  man, 
is  still  fond  of  describing  a  scene  he  witnessed  once,  which  shows 
with  what  care  even  the  "heroes"  of  the  country  tried  to  impress 
young  Lincoln.  "  Uncle  Jimmy  Larkins,  as  everybody  called  him,  " 
says  Mr.  Lamar,  "was  a  great  hero  in  my  childish  eyes.     Why,  I 


68  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

cannot  now  say,  without  it  was  his  manners.  There  had  been  a 
big  fox-chase,  and  Uncle  Jimmy  was  telhng  about  it.  Of  course 
he  was  the  hero.  I  was  only  a  little  shaver,  and  I  stood  in  front 
of  Uncle  Jimmy,  looking  up  into  his  eyes;  but  he  never  noticed 
me.  He  looked  at  Abraham  Lincoln  and  said:  'Abe,  I've  got  the 
best  horse  in  the  world ;  he  won  the  race  and  never  drew  a  long 
breath. '  But  Abe  paid  no  attention  to  Uncle  Jimmy,  and  I  got 
mad  at  the  big  overgrown  fellow,  and  wanted  him  to  listen  to  my 
hero's  story.  Uncle  Jimmy  was  determined  that  Abe  should  hear, 
and  repeated  the  story.  '  I  say,  Abe,  I  have  got  the  best  horse  in  the 
world;  after  all  that  running  he  never  drew  a  long  breath. '  Then 
Abe,  looking  down  at  my  little  dancing  hero,  said : 

"  'Well,  Larkins,  why  don't  you  tell  us  how  many  short 
breaths  he  drew?'  " 

This  raised  a  laugh  on  Uncle  Jimmy,  and  he  got  mad,  and  de- 
clared he'd  fight  Abe  if  he  wasn't  so  big.  He  jumped  around  until 
Abe  quietly  said : 

"  'Now,  Larkins,  if  you  don't  shut  up  I'll  throw  you  in  that 
water. '  " 

"  I  was  very  uneasy  and  angry  at  the  way  my  hero  was  treated, 
but  I  lived  to  change  my  views  about  Jieroes. " 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  8$. 

Abe  Teaches  Astronomy 

Miss  Roby,  whom  he  had  known  at  Crawford's  school,  and 
through  whom  he  had  saved  the  spelling-class  from  disaster,  was 
deeply  interested 

"Abe,  "  she  said,  late  one  afternoon,  "the  sun's  going  down.  " 

"  Reckon  not,  "  said  Abe.     "  We're  coming  up,  that's  all.  " 

"Don't  you  s'pose  I've  got  eyes?" 

"  Reckon  so ;  but  it's  the  earth  that  goes  round.  The  sun  keeps 
as  still  as  a  tree.  When  we're  swung  around  so  we  can't  see  him 
any  more,  all  the  shine's  cut  off  and  we  call  it  night?" 

"Abe,  what  a  fool  you  are!" 

It  was  all  in  vain  to  explain  the  matter  any  further.  The 
science  of  astronomy  had  not  been  taught  at  Crawford's,  and  was 
not  at  all  popular  in  Indiana.  Whatever  sprinkling  of  it  Abe  had 
found  among  his  books,  there  was  no  use  in  trying  to  spread  its 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN  INDIANA  69 

wild  vagaries  along  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  River.  He  knew  alto- 
gether too  much  for  his  time. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  The  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  6i 

How  They  Were  "  Treated  "  at  Church 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Crawford,  a  neighbor  of  the  Lincolns,  tells  how 
they  used  to  go  to  meeting :  "  At  that  time  we  thought  it  nothing  to 
go  eight  or  ten  miles.  The  old  ladies  did  not  stop  for  the  want  of  a 
shawl,  or  riding-dress,  or  two  horses  in  the  winter-time ;  but  they 
would  put  on  their  husbands'  old  overcoats,  wrap  up  their  little 
ones,  and  take  one  or  two  of  them  on  their  beasts,  while  their  hus- 
bands would  walk.      .... 

"  In  winter-time  they  would  hold  church  in  some  of  the  neigh- 
bors'  houses.  At  such  times  they  were  always  treated  with  the 
utmost  kindness ;  a  bottle  of  whiskey,  a  pitcher  of  water,  sugar  and 

a  glass  were  set  out,  or  a  basket  of  apples,  or  turnips 

Apples  were  scarce  them  times.  Sometimes  potatoes  were  used  for 
a 'treat.'  ....  In  old  Mr.  Linkhem's  (Lincoln's)  house  a  plate 
of  potatoes,  washed  and  pared  nicely,  was  handed  round. " 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Backwoods  Boy,  Horatio  Alger,  Jr.,  page  47. 

The  Little  Yellow  Dog  Masquerades  as  a  Coon 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  relate  the  following  "coon"  story: 
His  father  had  at  home  a  little  yellow  house-dog,  which  invariably 
gave  the  alarm  if  the  boys  undertook  to  slip  away  unobserved  after 
night  had  set  in — as  they  oftentimes  did — to  go  coon  hunting.  One 
evening  Abe  and  his  stepbrother,  John  Johnston,  with  the  usual 
complement  of  boys  required  in  a  successful  coon  hunt,  took 
the  insignificant  little  cur  with  them.  They  located  the  coveted 
coon,  killed  him,  and  then,  in  a  sportive  vein,  sewed  the  hide  on  the 
diminutive  yellow  dog.  The  latter  struggled  vigorously  during 
the  operation  of  sewing  on,  and,  being  released  from  the  hands  of 
his  captors,  made  a  bee-line  for  home.  Some  larger  and  more 
important  canines  on  the  way,  scenting  coon,  tracked  the  little 
animal  home,  and,  possibly  mistaking  him  for  real  coon,  speedily 
demolished  him.  The  next  morning  old  Thomas  Lincoln  discovered 
lying  in  his  yard  the  lifeless  remains  of  yellow  "Joe,  "  wdth  a  strong 
proof   of  coon -skin  accompaniment. 

"Father  was  much  incensed  at  his  death,"  observed  Mr.  Lin- 


70  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

coin  in  relating  the  story,  "but  as  John  and  I,  scantily  protected 
from  the  morning  wind,  stood  shivering  in  the  doorway,  we  felt 
assured  that  little  yellow  Joe  would  never  be  able  again  to  sound 
the  alarm  of  another  coon  hunt. " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  19.     (Foot-note.) 

"Tell  the  Whole  Truth,  'Tilda" 

While  still  living  near  Gentryville,  one  morning  when  Lincoln 
was  going  to  work  in  the  woods,  with  his  ax  over  his  shoulder,  his 
stepsister,  Matilda  Johnston,  who  had  been  forbidden  by  her  mother 
to  follow  him,  slyly,  and  unknown  to  her  mother,  crept  out  of  the 
house  and  ran  after  him.  Lincoln  was  already  quite  a  long  distance 
from  the  house,  among  the  trees,  following  a  deer  path,  and  whist- 
ling as  he  w^alked  along. 

He,  of  course,  did  not  know  the  girl  was  coming  after  him,  and 
Matilda  ran  so  softly  that  she  made  no  noise  to  attract  his  atten- 
tion. When  she  came  up  close  behind  him  she  made  a  quick  spring 
and  jumped  upon  his  shoulders,  holding  on  with  both  hands  and 
pressing  her  knees  into  his  back,  thus  pulling  him  quickly  down  to 
the  ground.  In  falling,  the  sharp  ax  which  Lincoln  was  carrying 
fell  also  and  cut  her  ankle  very  badly;  as  the  blood  ran  out  the 
mischievous  IMatilda  screamed  with  pain ;  Lincoln  at  once  tore  off 
some  cloth  to  stop  the  blood  from  flowing,  and  bound  up  the  wound 
as  well  as  he  could.     Then  taking  a  long  breath,  he  said : 

"  'Tilda,  I  am  astonished.   How  could  you  disobey  mother  so? " 

'Tilda  only  cried  in  reply,  and  Lincoln  continued:  "What  are 
you  going  to  tell  mother  about  getting  hurt  ? ' ' 

"  Tell  her  I  did  it  with  the  ax,  "  she  sobbed.  "  That  will  be  the 
truth,  won't  it ? "     To  which  Lincoln  replied  manfully : 

"  Yes,  that's  the  truth ;  but  it's  not  all  the  truth.  You  tell  the 
whole  truth,  'Tilda,  and  trust  your  good  mother  for  the  rest.  " 

So  'Tilda  went  limping  home  and  told  her  mother  all  the  truth ; 
and  the  good  woman  felt  so  sorry  for  her  that  she  did  not  even  scold 
her. 

Lincoln  in  Story,  Silas  G.  Pratt,  page  11. 

Bow-Hand  on  a  Flatboat — Abe's  First  Trip  to  New  Orleans 

Abe  had  long  since  given  up  the  idea  of  earning  a  living  behind 
the  counter  of  Jones's  store,  or  any  other  that  he  knew  of.     He  was 


FOURTEEN   YEARS  IN  INDIANA  71 

under  bonds  to  his  father,  but  he  made  an  attempt  to  obtain 
employment  as  a  boat-hand  on  the  river.  His  age  was  against  him 
in  his  first  effort,  but  his  opportunity  was  coming  to  him.  In  the 
month  of  March,  1828,  he  hired  himself  to  Mr.  Gentry,  the  great  man 
of  Gentryville.  His  duties  were  to  be  mainly  performed  at  Gentry's 
Landing,  near  Rockport,  on  the  Ohio  River.  There  was  a  great 
enterprise  on  foot,  or  rather  in  the  water,  at  Gentry's  Landing,  for  a 
fiatboat  belonging  to  the  proprietor  was  loading  with  bacon  and 
other  produce  for  a  trading  trip  down  the  Mississippi  to  New 
Orleans.  She  was  to  be  under  the  command  of  young  Allen  Gentry, 
but  would  never  return  to  the  Ohio,  for  flatboats  are  built  to  go 
down  with  the  stream  and  not  for  pulling  against  it 

The  flatboat  was  cast  loose  from  her  moorings  in  April,  and 
swept  away  down  the  river,  with  Abraham  Lincoln  as  manager  of 
the  forward  oar.  No  such  craft  ever  had  a  longer  or  stronger  pair 
of  arms  pledged  to  keep  her  blunt  nose  well  directed 

At  the  plantation  of  Madame  Duchesne,  six  miles  below  Baton 
Rouge,  the  flatboat  was  moored  for  the  night  against  the  landing, 
and  the  keepers  were  sound  asleep  in  their  little  kennel  of  a  cabin. 
They  slept  until  the  sound  of  stealthy  footsteps  on  the  deck  aroused 
Allen  Gentry,  and  he  sprang  to  his  feet.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  cause  of  the  disturbance.  A  gang  of  negroes  had  boarded 
the  boat  for  plunder,  and  they  would  think  lightly  enough,  now 
they  were  discovered,  of  knocking  the  two  traders  on  the  head  and 
throwing  them  into  the  river. 

"Bring  the  guns,  Abe!"  shouted  Allen.     "Shoot  them!" 

The  intruders  were  not  to  be  scared  away  by  even  so  alarming 
an  outcry ;  and  in  an  instant  more  Abe  was  among  them,  not  with 
a  gun  but  with  a  serviceable  club.  They  fought  well,  and  one  of 
them  gave  their  tall  enemy  a  wound,  the  scar  of  which  he  carried 
with  him  to  his  grave ;  but  his  strength  and  agility  were  too  much 
for  them.  He  beat  them  all  off  the  boat,  not  killing  any  one  man, 
but  convincing  the  entire  party  that  they  had  boarded  the  wrong 
"broad-horn." 

The  trip  lasted  about  three  months,  going  and  coming,  and  in 
June  the  two  adventurers  were  at  home  again,  well  satisfied  with 
their  success. 

Abrfih^m  Lincoln:  The  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life,  William  0.  Stoddard,  page  60, 


CHAPTER  IV 


Removal  to  Illinois 


Starting  for  Illinois 

The  next  autumn,  John  Hanks,  the  steadiest  and  most  trust- 
worthy of  his  family,  went  to  Illinois.  Though  an  illiterate  and 
rather  dull  man,  he  had  a  good  deal  of  solidity  of  character  and 

consequently  some  influence  and  con- 
sideration in  the  household.  He  settled 
in  Macon  County,  and  was  so  well  pleased 
with  the  country,  and  especially  with  its 
admirable  distribution  into  prairie  and 
timber,  that  he  sent  repeated  messages 
to  his  friends  in  Indiana  to  come  out  and 
join  him.  Thomas  Lincoln  was  always 
ready  to  move.  He  had  probably  by  this 
time  despaired  of  ever  owning  any  unen- 
cumbered real  estate  in  Indiana,  and  the 
younger  members  of  the  family  had  little 
to  bind  them  to  the  place  where,  they  saw 
nothing  in  the  future  but  hard  work 
and  poor  living.  Thomas  Lincoln 
handed  over  his  farm  to  Mr.  Gentry,  sold  his  crop  of  corn  and  hogs, 
packed  his  household  goods  and  those  of  his  children  and  sons- 
in-law  into  a  single  wagon,  drawn  by  two  yoke  of  oxen,  the  com- 
bined wealth  of  himself  and  Dennis  Hanks,  and  started  for  the 
new  State.  His  daughter  Sarah,  or  Nancy,  for  she  was  called  by 
both  names,  who  married  Aaron  Grigsby  a  few  years  before,  had 
died  in  childbirth.  The  emigrating  family  consisted  of  the  Lincolns, 
John  Johnston,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  son,  and  her  daughters,  Mrs.  Hall  and 
Mrs.  Hanks,  with  their  husbands. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  45, 

(72^ 


JOHN  HANKS 

The  steadiest  and  most  trustworthy 
of  his  family. 


REMOVAL   TO  ILLINOIS  73 


As  a  Traveling  Peddler 

Abe  drove  one  of  the  teams,  he  tells  us,  and,  according  to  a  story 
current  in  Gentryville,  he  succeeded  in  doing  a  fair  peddler's  busi- 
ness on  the  route.  Captain  WilHam  Jones,  in  whose  father's  store 
Lincoln  had  spent  so  many  hours  in  discussion  and  in  story-telling, 
and  for  whom  he  had  worked  the  last  winter  in  Indiana,  says  that 
before  leaving  the  State  Abraham  invested  all  his  money,  some 
thirty-odd  dollars,  in  notions.  Though  all  the  country  through 
which  they  expected  to  pass  was  but  sparsely  settled,  he  believed  he 
could  dispose  of  them.  "A  set  of  knives  and  forks  was  the  largest 
item  entered  on  the  bill,"  says  Captain  Jones;  "the  other  items 
were  needles,  pins,  thread,  buttons,  and  other  little  domestic  neces- 
sities. When  the  Lincolns  reached  their  new  home  near  Decatur, 
Illinois,  Abraham  wrote  back  to  my  father,  stating  that  he  had 
doubled  his  money  on  his  purchases  by  selling  them  along  the  road. 
Unfortunately  we  did  not  keep  that  letter,  not  thinking  how  highly 
we  would  have  prized  it  in  years  afterwards.  " 

The  pioneers  were  a  fortnight  on  their  journey.  All  we  know 
of  the  route  they  took  is  from  a  few  chance  remarks  of  Lincoln's  to 
his  friends  to  the  effect  that  they  passed  through  Vincennes,  where 
he  saw  a  printing-press  for  the  first  time,  and  through  Palestine, 
where  he  saw  a  juggler  performing  sleight-of-hand  tricks.  They 
reached  Macon  County,  their  new  home,  from  the  south.  Mr.  H. 
C.  Whitney  says  that  once  in  Decatur,  when  he  and  Lincoln  were 
passing  the  court-house  together,  "Lincoln  walked  out  a  few  feet 
in  front,  and,  after  shifting  his  position  two  or  three  times,  said, 
partly  to  himself  and  partly  to  me,  as  he  looked  up  at  the  building : 
*  Here  is  the  exact  spot  where  I  stood  by  our  wagon  when  we  moved 
from  Indiana,  twenty -six  years  ago ;  this  isn't  six  feet  from  the  exact 
spot. '  ....  He  then  told  me  he  had  frequently  thereafter 
tried  to  locate  the  route  by  which  they  had  come,  and  that  he  had 
decided  that  it  was  near  the  main  line  of  the  Illinois  Central  rail- 
road." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  49. 

Wades  Icy  "Waters  to  Rescue  a  Dog 

Mr.  Lincoln  once  described  this  journey  to  me.  He  said  the 
grounds  had  not  yet  yielded  up  the  frosts  of  winter;  that  during 


74  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  day  the  roads  would  thaw  out  on  the  surface  and  at  night  freeze 
over  again,  thus  making  traveUng,  especially  with  oxen,  painfully 
slow  and  tiresome.  There  were,  of  course,  no  bridges,  and  the  party 
were  consequently  driven  to  ford  the  streams,  unless  by  a  circuitous 
route  they  could  avoid  them.  In  the  early  part  of  the  day  the 
latter  were  also  frozen  slightly,  and  the  oxen  would  break  through 
a  square  yard  of  thin  ice  at  every  step.  Among  other  things  which 
the  party  brought  with  them  was  a  pet  dog,  which  trotted  along 
after  the  wagon.  One  day  the  little  fellow  fell  behind  and  failed  to 
catch  up  until  after  they  had  crossed  the  stream.  Missing  him  they 
looked  back,  and  there  on  the  opposite  bank  he  stood,  whining  and 
jumping  about  in  great  distress.  The  water  was  running  over  the 
broken  edges  of  the  ice,  and  the  poor  animal  was  afraid  to  cross. 
It  would  not  pay  to  turn  the  oxen  and  wagon  back  to  ford  the  stream 
again  in  order  to  recover  a  dog,  so  the  majority  in  their  anxiety  to 
move  forward,  decided  to  go  on  without  him. 

"  But  I  could  not  endure  the  idea  of  abandoning  even  a  dog,  " 
relates  Lincoln.  "  Pulling  off  shoes  and  socks  I  waded  across  the 
stream  and  triumphantly  returned  with  the  shivering  animal  under 
my  arm.  His  frantic  leaps  of  joy  and  other  evidences  of  a  dog's 
gratitude  amply  repaid  me  for  all  the  exposure  I  had  undergone.  " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  59.     (Foot-note.) 

Splitting  Historic  Rails  to  Surround  the  Illinois  Home 

Two  weeks  of  weary  tramping  over  forest  roads  and  muddy 
prairie,  and  the  dangerous  fording  of  streams  swollen  by  the  Feb- 
ruary thaws,  brought  the  party  to  John  Hanks 's  place  near  Decatur. 
He  met  them  with  a  frank  and  energetic  welcome.  He  had  already 
selected  a  piece  of  ground  for  them,  a  few  miles  from  his  own,  and 
had  the  logs  ready  for  their  house.     They  numbered  men  enough 

to  build  without  calling  in  their 
neighbors,  and  immediately  put 
up  a  cabin  on  the  north  fork 
of  the  Sangamon  River.  The 
family  thus  housed  and  shel- 
tered, one  more  bit  of  filial 
work  remained    for   Abraham 


Indiana  admitted  as  a  State 1816 

Monroe  made  President 1817 

Illinois  admitted  as  a  State 1818 

The  Missouri  Compromise 1820 

Missouri  admitted  as  a  State 1821 

J.  0.  Adams  made  President 1825 

Webster's  Dictionary  first  published 1828 

Jackson  made  President 1829 

Opening  of  the  first  steam  railroad  in  the 

United  States,  at  Baltimore 1830 


before  his  assuming  his  virile  independence.     With  the   assistance 
of   John    Hanks    he    plowed   fifteen    acres,    and    split,    from   the 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS 


ys 


tall  walnut-trees  of  the  primeval  forest,  enough  rails  to  surround 
them  with  a  fence.  Little  did  either  dream,  while  engaged  in  this 
work,  that  the  day  would  come  when  the  appearance  of  John  Hanks 
in  a  public  meeting,  with  two  of  these  rails  on  his  shoulder,  would 


From  The  Life  of  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

FIRST  HOME  IN  ILLINOIS 
Abe  and  John  Hanks  split  the  historic  rails  to  surround  this  house  and  fifteen  acres  of  ploughed  land. 

electrify  a  State  convention,  and  kindle  throughout  the  country 
a  contagious  and  passionate  enthusiasm,  whose  results  would  reach 
to  endless  generations. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  45. 

Abe  Starts  Out  for  Himself 

If  they  were  far  from  being  his  "first  and  only  rails,"  they 
certainly  were  the  most  fam.ous  ones  he  or  anybody  else  ever  split. 
This  was  the  last  work  he  did  for  his  father,  for  in  the  summer  of 


76  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

that  year  (1830)  he  exercised  the  right  of  majority  and  started 
out  to  shift  for  himself.  When  he  left  his  home  he  went  empty- 
handed.  He  was  already  some  months  over  twenty-one  years 
of  age,   but   he   had   nothing  in  the  world,   not  even   a  suit   of 

respectable  clothes He  had  no  trade,  no  profession,  no 

spot  of  land,  no  patron,  no  influence.  Two  things  recommended 
him  to  his  neighbors — he  was  strong,  and  he  was  a  good  fellow. 

His  strength  made  him  a  valuable  laborer.  Not  that  he  was 
fond  of  hard  labor.  Mrs.  Crawford  says:  "Abe  was  no  hand  to 
pitch  into  work  like  killing  snakes;"  but  when  he  did  work  it  was 
with  an  ease  and  effectiveness  which  compensated  his  employer 
for  the  time  he  spent  in  practical  jokes  and  extemporaneous  speeches. 
He  would  lift  as  much  as  three  ordinary  men,  and  "  My,  how  he 
would  chop!"  says  Dennis  Hanks.  "His  ax  would  flash  and  bite 
into  a  sugar  tree,  or  sycamore,  and  down  it  would  come.  If  you 
heard  him  f ellin '  trees  in  a  clearin '  you  would  say  there  was  three 
men  at  work,  by  the  way  the  trees  fell.  "      .... 

His  strength  won  him  popularity,  but  his  good  nature,  his  wit, 
his  skill  in  debate,  his  stories,  were  still  more  efficient  in  gaining  him 
good-will.  People  liked  to  have  him  around,  and  voted  him  a  good 
fellow  to  work  with.  Yet  such  were  the  conditions  of  his  life  at  this 
time  that,  in  spite  of  his  popularity,  nothing  was  open  to  him  but 
hard  manual  labor.  To  take  the  first  job  which  he  happened  upon 
— rail-splitting,  plowing,  lumbering,  boating,  store-keeping — and 
make  the  most  of  it,  thankful  if  thereby  he  earned  his  bed  and  board 
and  yearly  suit  of  jeans,  was  apparently  all  there  was  before 
Abraham  Lincoln  in  1830,  when  he  started  out  for  himself. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  loi. 

A  Thousand  Rails  for  a  Pair  of  Brown  Jeans  Trousers 

Mr.  George  Close,  the  partner  of  Lincoln  in  the  rail-splitting 
business,  says  that  Lincoln  was  at  this  time  a  farm-laborer,  working 
from  day  to  day,  for  different  people,  chopping  wood,  mauling  rails, 
or  doing  whatever  was  to  be  done.  The  country  was  poor,  and  hard 
work  was  the  common  lot ;  the  heaviest  share  fell  to  young  unmar- 
ried men,  with  whom  it  was  a  continual  struggle  to  earn  a  livelihood. 
Lincoln  and  Mr.  Close  made  about  one  thousand  rails  together  for 
James  Hawks  and  William  Miller,  receiving  their  pay  in  homespun 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  77 

clothing.  Lincoln's  bargain  with  Miller's  wife  was  that  he  should 
have  one  yard  of  brown  jeans  (richly  dyed  with  walnut  bark)  for 
every  four  hundred  rails  made,  until  he  should  have  enough  for  a 
pair  of  trousers.  As  Lincoln  was  already  of  great  altitude,  the 
number  of  rails  that  went  to  the  acquirement  of  his  pantaloons  was 
necessarily  immense. 

Life  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  Dean  Howells,  page  24.     (Foot-note.; 

"The  Winter  of  the  Deep  Snow" 

It  will  be  recollected  that  an  especial  reason  why  Thomas 
Lincoln  removed  from  Indiana  to  Illinois  was,  as  Dennis  Hanks 
puts  it,  to  get  "where  milk-sick  was  not."  The  new  settlers  did, 
indeed,  escape  the  "  milk-sickness,  "  but  they  encountered  a  disease 
which  was  nearly  as  bad.  The  fall  of  1830  was  an  unusually  severe 
season  for  chills  and  fever,  and  Thomas  and  his  family  were  so 
sorely  afflicted  with  it  as  to  become  thoroughly  discouraged.  Their 
sorry  little  cabin  presented  a  melancholy  sight:  the  father  and 
mother  both  shaking  at  once,  and  the  married  daughter,  who  came 
to  minister  to  their  sufferings,  not  much  better  off.  So  terribly  did 
they  suffer  that  the  father  vowed  a  vow  that  as  soon  as  he  got  able 
to  travel  he  would  "git  out  0'  thar!" 

The  winter  season  came  on  and  was  one  of  "  ethereal  mildness  " 
up  to  Christmas,  when  a  terrible  and  persistent  snowstorm  set  in, 
and  lasted  without  intermission  for  forty-eight  hours,  leaving  be- 
tween three  or  four  feet  on  the  ground  on  the  level,  a  depth  never 
attained  before  nor  since,  and  remaining  so  for  over  two  months. 
Its  effect  upon  the  rural  districts  was  disastrous :  the  wheat  crops 
were  totally  ruined ;  cattle,  hogs  and  even  horses  perished ;  all  sorts 
of  provisions  gave  out.  There  was  no  means  of  getting  help  from, 
abroad.  In  some  places  teams  would  bear  up  on  the  crust  of  the 
snow;  in  others,  there  was  no  road  communication  at  all,  and 
athletic  men  would  be  compelled  to  journey  on  foot  to  neighbors  for 
food.  Many  perished  on  the  prairie  from  cold.  Some  even  perished 
in  their  houses  from  hunger.  Selfishness  was  banished  by  the  com- 
mon calamity.  Charity  was  universal ;  the  whole  interior  districts 
of  the  State  were  made  akin  by  that  one  touch  of  nature — "the  big 
snow." 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  66. 


78  THE  STORV'LITE  OF  UNCOLN 

Rail- Splitting  and  Speech-Making 

For  a  long  time  after  beginning  life  on  his  own  account  Abe 
remained  in  sight  of  the  parental  abode.  He  worked  at  odd  jobs 
in  the  neighborhood,  or  wherever  the  demand  for  his  services  called 
him.  As  late  as  1 83 1  he  was  still  in  the  same  parts,  and  John  Hanks 
is  authorit}^  for  the  statement  that  he  "made  three  thousand  rails 
for  Major  Warnick,  "  walking  daily  three  miles  to  his  work.  During 
the  intervals  of  leisure  he  read  the  few  books  obtainable,  and  con- 
tinued the  practice  of  extemporaneous  speaking  to  the  usual  audi- 
ence of  undemonstrative  stumps  and  voiceless  trees.  His  first 
attempt  at  public  speaking  after  landing  in  Illinois  is  thus  described 
to  me  by  John  Hanks,  whose  language  I  incorporate : 

"After  Abe  got  to  Decatur,  or  rather  to  Macon  County,  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Posey  came  into  our  neighborhood  and  made  a 
speech.  It  was  a  bad  one,  and  I  said  Abe  could  beat  it.  I  turned 
down  a  box  and  Abe  made  his  speech.  The  other  man  was  a  candid 
date — ^Abe  wasn't.  Abe  beat  him  to  death,  his  subject  being  the 
navigation  of  the  Sangamon  River.  The  man,  after  Abe's  speech 
was  through,  took  him  aside  and  asked  him  where  he  had  learned  so 
much  and  how  he  could  do  so  well.  Abe  replied,  stating  his  manner 
and  method  of  reading,  and  what  he  had  read.  The  man  encour- 
aged him  to  persevere. " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  62. 

Denton  OfEutt  Engages  Hanks,  Lincoln  and  Johnston   to  Take 

a  Boat  to  New  Orleans 

For  the  first  time  we  are  now  favored  with  the  appearance  on 
the  scene  of  a  very  important  personage — one  destined  to  exert  no 
little  influence  in  shaping  Lincoln's  fortunes.  It  is  Denton  Oftutt, 
a  brisk  and  venturesome  business  man,  whose  operations  extended 
up  and  down  the  Sangamon  River  for  many  miles.  Having  heard 
glowing  reports  of  John  Hanks 's  successful  experience  as  a  boat- 
man in  Kentucky,  he  had  come  down  the  river  to  engage  the 
latter's  services  to  take  a  boat -load  of  stock  and  provisions  to  New 
Orleans. 

"He  wanted  me  to  go  badly,  "  observes  Hanks,  "but  I  waited 
awhile  before  answering.  I  hunted  up  Abe,  and  I  introduced  him 
and  John  Johnston,  his  stepbrother,  to  Offutt.     After  some  talk 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  79 

we  at  last  made  an  engagement  with  Offutt  at  fifty  cents  a  day  and 
sixty  dollars,  to  make  the  trip  to  New  Orleans.  Abe  and  I  came 
down  the  Sangamon  River  in  a  canoe  in  March,  1831;  landed  at 
what  is  now  called  Jamestown,  five  miles  east  of  Springfield,  then 
known  as  Judy's  Ferry. " 

Here  Johnston  joined  them,  and,  leaving  their  canoe  in  charge 
of  one  Uriah  Mann,  they  walked  to  Springfield,  where,  after  some 
enquiry,  they  found  the  genial  and  enterprising  Ofifutt  regaling 
himself  with  the  good  cheer  dispensed   at   the  "Buckhorn"  inn. 

OfTutt  had  agreed  with  Hanks  to  have  a  boat  ready  for 

him  and  his  two  companions  at  the  mouth  of  Spring  Creek  on  their 
arrival,  but  too  many  deep  potations  with  the  new-comers  who 
dail}' thronged  about  the  "Buckhorn"  had  interfered  with  the  exe- 
cution of  his  plans.  .  .  .  Offutt  met  the  three  expectant  navi- 
gators on  their  arrival,  and  deep  were  his  regrets  over  his  failure 
to  provide  the  boat.  The  interview  resulted  in  the  trio  engaging  to 
make  the  boat  themselves. 

Hemdon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  62, 

Building  the  Flatboat  and  Telling  Yarns 

Sangamontown,  where  Mr.  Lincoln  built  the '  flatboat,  has, 
since  his  day,  disappeared  from  the  earth ;  but  then  it  was  one  of  the 
flourishing  settlements  on  the  river  of  that  name.  Lincoln  and  his 
friends,  on  arriving  there  in  March,  immediately  began  work. 
There  is  still  living  (1895)  in  Springfield,  Illinois,  a  man  who  helped 
Lincoln  at  the  raft -building— Mr.  John  Roll,  a  well-known  citizen, 
and  one  who  has  been  prominent  in  the  material  advancement  of 
the  city.  Mr.  Roll  remembers  distinctly  Lincoln's  first  appearance 
in  Sangamontown. 

"  He  was  a  tall,  gaunt  young  man,  "  he  says,  "  dressed  in  a  suit 
of  blue  homespun,  consisting  of  a  roimdabout  jacket,  waistcoat,  and 
breeches  which  came  to  within  about  four  inches  of  his  feet.  The 
latter  were  encased  in  rawhide  boots,  into  the  top  of  which,  most  of 
the  time,  his  pantaloons  were  stuffed.  He  wore  a  soft  felt  hat  which 
had  at  one  time  been  black,  but  now,  as  its  owner  dryly  remarked, 
'  was  sunburned  until  it  was  a  combine  of  colors. '  "   .    ,    .    . 

It  took  some  four  weeks  to  build  the  raft,  and  in  that  period 
Lincoln  succeeded  in  captivating  the  entire  village  by  his  story- 
telling.    It  was  the  custom  in  Sangamon  for  the  "men-folks"  to 


8o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

gather  at  noon  and  in  the  evening,  when  resting,  in  a  convenient 
lane  near  the  mill.  They  had  rolled  out  a  long  peeled  log,  on  which 
they  lounged  while  they  whittled  and  talked.  Lincoln  had  not  been 
long  in  Sangamon  before  he  joined  this  circle.  At  once  be  became 
a  favorite  by  his  jokes  and  good  humor.  As  soon  as  he  appeared  at 
the  assembly  ground  the  men  would  start  him  to  story-telling. 
So  irresistibly  droll  were  his  yarns  that,  "whenever  he'd  end  up 
in  his  imexpected  way  the  boys  on  the  log  would  whoop  and  roll 
off. "  The  result  of  the  rolling  off  was  to  polish  the  old  log  like  a 
mirror.  The  men,  recognizing  Lincoln's  part  in  this  polishing, 
christened  their  seat  "Abe's  log."  Long  after  Lincoln  had  disap- 
peared from  Sangamon  "Abe's  log"  remained,  and  until  it  had 
rotted  away,  people  pointed  it  out,  and  repeated  the  droll  stories 
of  the  stranger. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  104. 

Lincoln  Saves  Three  Lives — ^A  Thrilling  Adventure 

The  flatboat  was  done  in  about  a  month,  and  Lincoln  and  his 
friends  prepared  to  leave  Sangamon.  Before  he  started,  however, 
he  was  the  hero  of  an  adventure  so  thrilling  that  he  won  new  laurels 
in  the  community.  Mr.  Roll,  who  was  a  witness  to  the  whole 
exciting  scene,  tells  the  story : 

"It  w^as  the  spring  following  'the  winter  of  the  deep  snow.' 
Walter  Carman,  John  Seamon,  myself,  and  at  times  others  of  the 
Carman  boys,  had  helped  Abe  in  building  the  boat,  and  when  we 
had  finished  we  went  to  work  to  make  a  dug-out,  or  canoe,  to  be 
used  as  a  small  boat  with  the  fiat.  We  found  a  suitable  log  about  an 
eighth  of  a  mile  up  the  river,  and  with  our  axes  went  to  work  imder 
Lincoln's  directions.  The  river  was  very  high,  fairly  'booming.' 
After  the  dug-out  was  ready  to  laimch  we  took  it  to  the  edge  of  the 
water,  and  made  ready  to  'let  her  go,'  when  Walter  Carman  and 
John  Seamon  jumped  in  as  the  boat  struck  the  water,  each  one 
anxious  to  be  the  first  to  get  a  ride.  As  they  shot  out  from  the 
shore  they  foimd  they  were  unable  to  make  any  headway  against 
the  strong  current.  Carman  had  the  paddle,  and  Seamon  was  in 
the  stern  of  the  boat.  Lincoln  shouted  to  them  to  '  head  up-stream , ' 
and  'work  back  to  shore,'  but  the}^  found  themselves  powerless 
against  the  stream.  At  last  they  began  to  pull  for  the  wreck  of  an 
old  flatboat,  the  first  ever  built  on  the  Sangamon,  which  had  sunk 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  8x 

and  gone  to  pieces,  leaving  one  of  the  stanchions  sticking  above  the 
water.  Just  as  they  reached  it  Seamon  made  a  grab,  and  caught 
hold  of  the  stanchion,  when  the  canoe  capsized,  leaving  Seamon 
clinging  to  the  old  timber,  and  throwing  Carman  into  the  stream. 
It  carried  him  down  with  the  speed  of  a  mill-race.  Lincoln  raised 
his  voice  above  the  roar  of  the  flood,  and  yelled  to  Carman  to  swim 
for  an  elm  tree  which  stood  almost  in  the  channel,  which  the  action 
of  the  water  had  changed. 

"Carman,  being  a  good  swimmer,  succeeded  in  catching  a 
branch,  and  pulled  himself  up  out  of  the  water,  which  was  very  cold, 
and  had  almost  chilled  him  to  death ;  and  there  he  sat,  shivering  and 
chattering  in  the  tree. 

"  Lincoln,  seeing  Carman  safe,  called  out  to  Seamon  to  let 
go  the  stanchion  and  swim  for  the  tree.  With  some  hesitation 
he  obeyed,  and  struck  out,  while  Lincoln  cheered  and  directed 
him  from  the  bank.  As  Seamon  neared  the  tree  he  made  one 
grab  for  a  branch,  and,  missing  it,  went  under  the  water.  Another 
desperate  lunge  was  successful,  and  he  climbed  up  beside 
Carman. 

"Things  were  pretty  exciting  now,  for  there  were  two  men  in 
the  tree,  and  the  boat  was  gone.  It  was  a  cold,  raw  April  day,  and 
there  was  great  danger  of  the  men  becoming  benumbed  and  falling 
back  into  the  water.  Lincoln  called  out  to  them  to  keep  their 
spirits  up  and  he  would  save  them. 

"The  village  had  been  alarmed  by  this  time,  and  many  people 
had  come  down  to  the  bank.  Lincoln  procured  a  rope  and  tied  it 
to  a  log.  He  called  all  hands  to  come  and  help  roll  the  log  into  the 
water,  and,  after  this  had  been  done,  he,  with  the  assistance  of 
several  others,  towed  it  some  distance  up  the  stream.  A  daring 
young  fellow  by  the  name  of  'Jim'  Dorrell  then  took  his  seat  on 
the  end  of  the  log,  and  it  was  pushed  out  into  the  current,  with 
the  expectation  that  it  would  be  carried  down  stream  against  the 
tree  where  Seamon  and  Carman  were. 

"The  log  was  well  directed,  and  went  straight  to  the  tree; 
but  Jim,  in  his  impatience  to  help  his  friends,  fell  a  victim  to  his 
good  intentions.  Making  a  frantic  grab  at  a  branch,  he  raised  him- 
self off  the  log,  which  was  swept  from  under  him  by  the  raging 
waters  and  he  soon  joined  the  other  victims  upon  their  forlorn 
perch. 


82  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"The  excitement  on  shore  increased,  and  almost  the  whole 
population  of  the  village  gathered  on  the  river  bank.  Lincoln  had 
the  log  pulled  up  the  stream,  and,  securing  another  piece  of  rope, 
called  to  the  men  in  the  tree  to  catch  it  if  they  could  when  he  should 
reach  the  tree.  He  then  straddled  the  log  himself,  and  gave  the 
word  to  push  out  into  the  stream.  When  he  dashed  into  the  tree 
|he  threw  the  rope  over  the  stump  of  a  broken  limb,  and  let  it  play 
until  he  broke  the  speed  of  the  log,  and  gradually  drew  it  back  to 
the  tree,  holding  it  there  until  the  three  now  nearly  frozen  men  had 
climbed  down  and  seated  themselves  astride.  He  then  gave  orders 
to  the  people  on  the  shore  to  hold  fast  to  the  end  of  the  rope  which 
was  tied  to  the  log,  and  leaving  his  rope  in  the  tree  he  turned  the 
log  adrift.  The  force  of  the  current,  acting  against  the  taut  rope, 
swung  the  log  around  against  the  bank  and  all  'on  board'  were 
saved. 

"The  excited  people,  who  had  watched  the  dangerous  experi- 
ment with  alternate  hope  and  fear,  now  broke  into  cheers  for  Abe 
Lincoln,  and  praises  for  his  brave  act.  This  adventure  made  quite 
a  hero  of  him  along  the  Sangamon,  and  the  people  never  tired  of 
telling  of  the  exploit.  " 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Liitcoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  io6. 

His  First  Sight  of  "The  Horrors  of  Human  Slavery" 

Within  four  weeks  the  boat  was  ready  to  launch.  Offutt  was 
sent  for  and  was  present  w^hen  she  slid  into  the  water.  It  was  the 
occasion  of  much  political  chat  and  buncombe,  in  which  the  Whig 
party  and  Jackson  alike  were,  strangely  enough,  lauded  to  the  skies. 
....  Many  disputes  arose,  we  are  told,  in  which  Lincoln  took 
part  and  found  a  good  field  for  practice  and  debate. 

A  traveling  juggler  halted  long  enough  in  Sangamontown, 
where  the  boat  was  launched,  to  give  an  exhibition  of  his  art  and 
dexterity  in  the  loft  of  Jacob  Carman's  house.  In  Lincoln's  low- 
crowned,  broad-brimmed  hat  the  magician  cooked  eggs.  In  ex- 
plaining the  delay  in  passing  up  his  hat,  Lincoln  drolly  observes : 
"  It  was  out  of  respect  for  the  eggs,  not  care  for  my  hat.  " 

Having  loaded  the  vessel  with  pork  in  barrels,  corn,  and  hogs, 
these  sturdy  boatmen  swung  out  into  the  stream.  On  April  19 
(1831)  they  reached  New  Salem,  a  place  destined  to  be  an  important 
spot  in  the  career  of  Lincoln.     There  they  met   with  their  first 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS  83 

serious  delay.  The  boat  stranded  on  Rutledge's  mill-dam  and  hung 
over  it  a  day  and  a  night. 

"  We  unloaded  the  boat,  "  narrated  one  of  the  crew 

"That  is,  we  transferred  the  goods  from  our  boat  to  a  borrowed 
one.  We  then  rolled  the  barrels  forward ;  Lincoln  bored  a  hole  in 
the  end  (projecting)  over  the  dam;  the  water  which  had  leaked  in 
ran  out  and  we  slid  over.  " 

Oflfutt  was  profoundly  impressed  with  this  exhibition  of  Lin- 
coln's ingenuity.  In  his  enthusiasm  he  declared  to  the  crowd  that 
covered  the  hill,  and  had  been  watching  Lincoln's  operations, 
that  he  would  build  a  steamboat  to  plow  up  and  down  the  Sanga- 
mon, and  that  Lincoln  should  be  her  captain.  She  would  have 
rollers  for  shoals  and  dams,  runners  for  ice,  and  with  Lincoln  in 
charge,  "By  thunder,  she'd  have  to  go!"   .    .    .    . 

From  the  Sangamon  they  passed  to  the  Illinois.  At  Beards- 
town  their  unique  craft,  with  its  "sails  made  of  planks  and  cloth,  " 
excited  the  amusement  and  laughter  of  those  who  saw  them  from 
the  shore.  Once  on  the  bosom  of  the  broad  Mississippi  they  glided 
past  Alton,  St.  Louis,  and  Cairo  in  rapid  succession,  tied  up  for  a  day 
at  Memphis,  and  made  brief  stops  at  Vicksburg  and  Natchez. 
Early  in  May  they  reached  New  Orleans,  where  they  lingered  a 
month,  disposing  of  their  cargo  and  viewing  the  sights  which  the 
Crescent  City  afforded. 

In  New  Orleans,  for  the  first  time,  Lincoln  beheld  the  true 
horrors  of  human  slavery.  He  saw  "negroes  in  chains — whipped 
and  scourged."  Against  this  inhumanity  his  sense  of  right  and 
justice  rebelled,  and  his  mind  and  conscience  were  awakened  to 
what  he  had  often  heard  and  read.  No  doubt,  as  one  of  his  com- 
panions has  said,  "Slavery  ran  the  iron  into  him  then  and  there." 

One  morning  in  their  rambles  over  the  city  the  trio  passed  a 
slave  auction.  A  vigorous  and  comely  mulatto  girl  was  being  sold. 
She  underwent  a  thorough  examination  at  the  hands  of  the  bidders : 
they  pinched  her  flesh  and  made  her  trot  up  and  down  the  room  like 
a  horse,  to  show  how  she  moved,  and  in  order,  as  the  auctioneer 
said,  that  "bidders  might  satisfy  themselves"  whether  the  article 
they  were  offering  to  buy  was  sound  or  not. 

The  whole  thing  was  so  revolting  that  Lincoln  moved  away 
from  the  scene  with  a  deep  feeling  of  "unconquerable  hate. "  Bid- 
ding his  companions  follow  him,  he  said: 


84  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  Boys,  let's  get  away  from  this.  If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit 
that  thing  (meaning  slavery),  I'll  hit  it  hard!" 

Hfrndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  64. 

A  Voodoo  Prophecy 

Lincoln  often  declared  to  his  intimate  friends  that  he  was 
from  boyhood  superstitious.  He  said  that  the  near  approach  of  the 
important  events  in  his  life  were  indicated  by  a  presentiment,  or  a 
strange  dream,  or  in  some  other  mysterious  way  it  was  impressed 
upon  him  that  something  important  was  to  occur.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  on  this  visit  to  New  Orleans  he  and  his  companion, 
John  Hanks,  visited  an  old  fortune  teller,  a  Voodoo  negress.  Tradi- 
tion says  that  during  the  interview  she  became  very  much  excited, 
and  after  various  predictions,  exclaimed : 

"  You  will  be  President,  and  all  the  negroes  will  be  free.  " 
That  the  old  Voodoo  negress  should  have  foretold  that  the 
visitor  would  be  President  is  not  at  all  incredible.      She  doubtless 
told  this  to  many  aspiring  lads,  but  the  prophecy  of  the  freedom  of 
the  slaves  requires  confirmation. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  31. 

Abe  Throws  Needham,  the  Champion  Wrestler 

Some  time  in  June  the  party  took  passage  on  a  steamboat 
going  up  the  river,  and  remained  together  until  they  reached  St. 
Louis,  where  Offutt  left  them,  and  Abe,  Hanks  and  Johnston  started 
on  foot  for  the  interior  of  Illinois.  At  Edwardsville,  twenty-five 
miles  out.  Hanks  took  the  road  to  Springfield,  and  Abe  and  Johnston 
took  that  to  Coles  County,  where  Tom  Lincoln  had  moved  since 
Abraham's  departure  from  home 

Scarcely  had  Abe  reached  Coles  County,  and  begun  to  think 
what  next  to  turn  his  hand  to,  when  he  received  a  visit  from  a 
famous  wrestler,  one  Daniel  Needham,  who  regarded  him  as  a  grow- 
ing rival,  and  had  a  fancy  to  try  him  a  fall  or  two.  He  considered 
himself  "the  best  man"  in  the  county,  and  the  report  of  Abe's 
achievements  filled  his  big  breast  with  envious  pains.  His  greeting 
was  friendly  and  hearty,  but  his  challenge  was  rough  and  peremp- 
tory. Abe .  .  .  met  him  by  public  appointment  in  the  "  green- 
wood,"  at  Wabash  Point,  where  he  threw  Needham  twice  with 
such  ease  that  the  latter's  pride  was  more  hurt  than  his  body. 


REMOVAL  TO  ILLINOIS 


8S 


"  Lincoln, "  said  he,  "  you  have  thrown  me  twice,  but  you  can't 

whip  me." 

"Needham,"  repHed  Abe,  "are  you  satisfied  that  I  can  throw 
you?  If  you  are  not,  and  must  be  convinced  through  a  thrashing, 
I  will  do  that,  too,  for  your  sake." 

Needham  surrendered  with  such  grace  as  he  could  command. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  83. 


^rt!*?ft»« 


\ 


X. 


'V 


N. 


^'.  i--^^'""*^ 


X 


"WRESTLING  WITH  NEEDHAM 


CHAPTER  V 


Six  Years  at  New  Salem 


A  Stranger  Who  Could  "Make  a  Few  Rabbit  Tracks" 

It  was  in  August  of  the  year  1831  that  Lincoln  left  his  father's 
roof,  and  swung  out  for  himself  into  the  current  of  the  world  to 
make  his  fortune  in  his  own  way.  He  went  down  to  New  Salem 
again  to  assist  Offutt  in  the  business  that  lively  speculator  thought 
of  establishing  there.     He  was    more  punctual    than    either   his 

employer  or  the  merchandise, 
and  met  with  the  usual  re- 
ward of  punctuality  in  being 
forced  to  waste  his  time  in 
waiting  for  the  tardy  ones. 
He  seemed  to  the  New  Salem 
people  to  be  "loafing;"  sev- 
eral of  them  have  given  that 
description  of  him. 

He  did  one  day's  work, 
acting  as  clerk  of  a  local  elec- 
tion, a  lettered  loafer  being 
pretty  sure  of  employment  on 
such  an  occasion. 

Mrs.  Lizzie  H.  Bell  writes 
of  this  incident:  My  father. 
Mentor  Graham,  was  on  that 
day,  as  usual,  appointed  to  be 
a  clerk,  and  Mr.  McNamee, 
who  was  to  be  the  other,  was 
sick  and  failed  to  come.  They  were  looking  around  for  a  man  to 
fill  his  place  when  my  father  noticed  Mr.  Lincoln  and  asked  if  he 
could  write.  He  answered  that  he  could  "make  a  few  rabbit 
tracks. " 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  78,  and  Foot-note, 

.486) 


MENTOR  GRAHAM 
The  New  Salem  schoolmaster,  who  helped  Lincoln  in 
his  study  of  grammar  and  surveying. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  87 

Piloting  a  Flatboat  down  Illinois  River 

A  few  days  after  the  election  Lincoln  found  employment 
^^*th  one  Dr.  Nelson,  who,  after  the  style  of  dignitaries  of  later  days, 
started  with  his  family  and  effects  in  his  private  conveyance — which 
in  this  instance  was  a  flatboat — for  Texas.  Lincoln  was  hired  to 
pilot  the  vessel  through  to  the  Illinois  River,  Arriving  at  Beardstown 
the  pilot  was  discharged,  and  returned  on  foot  across  the  sand  and 
hills  to  New  Salem., 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  71. 

Storekeeper  and  Miller 

Offutt  and  his  goods  arrived  at  last,  and  Lincoln  and  he  imme- 
diately got  them  into  position,  and  opened  their  door  to  what  com- 
merce could  be  found  in  New  Salem.  There  was  clearly  not  enough 
to  satisfy  the  volatile  mind  of  Mr.  Offutt,  for  he  soon  bought  Cam- 
eron's mill  at  the  historic  dam,  and  made  Abraham  superintendent 
also  of  that  branch  of  the  business. 

It  is  to  be  surmised  that  Offutt  never  inspired  his  neighbors 
and  customers  with  any  deep  regard  for  his  solidity  of  character. 
One  of  them  says  of  him,  with  injurious  pleonasm,  that  he  "talked 
too  much  with  his  mouth.  "  A  natural  consequence  of  his  excessive 
fluency  was  soon  to  be  made  disagreeably  evident  to  his  clerk. 
He  admired  Abraham  beyond  measure,  and  praised  him  beyond 
prudence. 

He  said  that  Abe  knew  more  than  any  man  in  the  United  States ; 
and  he  was  certainly  not  warranted  in  making  such  an  assertion,  as 
his  own  knowledge  of  the  actual  state  of  science  in  America  could 
not  have  been  exhaustive.  He  also  said  that  Abe  could  beat  any 
m.an  in  the  county  running,  jumping,  or  "  wrastling.  "  This  propo- 
sition, being  less  abstract  in  its  nature,  was  far  more  readily 
Igrasped  by  the  local  mind,  and  was  not  likely  to  pass  unchallenged. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  78. 

Encounters  the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys" 

Public  opinion  at  New  Salem  was  formed  by  a  crowd  of  ruf- 
fianly young  fellows  who  were  called  the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys." 
Once  or  twice  a  week  they  descended  upon  the  village  and  passed 
the  day  in  drinking,  fighting  and  brutal  horse-play.     If  a  stranger 


ss 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN' 


appeared  in  the  place,  he  was  likely  to  suffer  a  rude  initiation  into 
the  social  life  of  New  Salem  at  the  hands  of  these  jovial  savages. 
Sometimes  he  was  nailed  up  in  a  hogshead  and  rolled  down  hill; 
sometimes  he  was  insulted  into  a  fight  and  then  mauled  black  and 
blue;  for,  despite  their  pretensions  to  chivalry,  they  had  no 
scruples  about  fair  play  or  any  such  superstition  of  civilization. 


From  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks. 

ABE  THROWS  JACK  ARMSTRONG 

Lincoln,  standing  undismayed  with  his  back  to  the  wall,   looked  so  formidable  in  his  defiance  that 
an  honest  admiration  took  the  place  of  momentary  fury,  and  bis   initiation  was  over. 

At  first  they  did  not  seem  inclined  to  molest  young  Lincoln. 
His  appearance  did  not  invite  insolence ;  his  reputation  for  strength 
and  activity  was  a  greater  protection  to  him  than  his  inoffensive 
good-nature.  But  the  loud  admiration  of  Offutt  gave  them  um- 
brage. It  led  to  a  dispute,  contradictions,  and  finally  to  a  formal 
banter  to  a  wrestling-match.  Lincoln  was  greatly  averse  to  all 
this  "  wooling  and  pulling, "  as  he  called  it. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  89 

But  Offutt's  indiscretion  had  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  show 
his  mettle.  Jack  Armstrong,  the  leading  bully  of  the  gang,  was 
selected  to  throw  him,  and  expected  an  easy  victory.  But  he 
soon  found  himself  in  different  hands  from  any  he  had  heretofore 
engaged  with.  Seeing  he  could  not  manage  the  tall  stranger,  his 
friends  swarmed  in,  and  by  kicking  and  tripping  nearly  succeeded  in 
getting  Lincoln  down. 

At  this,  as  has  been  said  of  another  hero,  "the  spirit  of  Odin 
entered  into  him,  "  and  putting  forth  his  whole  strength,  he  held  the 
pride  of  Clary's  Grove  in  his  arms  like  a  child,  and  almost  choked 
the  exuberant  life  out  of  him.  For  a  moment  a  general  fight  seemed 
inevitable;  but  Lincoln,  standing  undismayed  with  his  back  to  the 
wall,  looked  so  formidable  in  his  defiance  that  an  honest  admiration 
took  the  place  of  momentary  fury,  and  his  initiation  was  over. 

As  to  Armstrong,  he  was  Lincoln's  friend  and  sworn  brother  as 
soon  as  he  recovered  the  use  of  his  larynx,  and  the  bond  thus 
strangely  created  lasted  through  life.  Lincoln  had  no  further 
occasion  to  fight  his  own  battles  while  Armstrong  was  there  to  act 
as  his  champion 

This  incident,  trivial  and  vulgar  as  it  may  seem,  was  of  great 
importance  in  Lincoln's  life.  His  behavior  in  this  ignoble  scuffle 
did  the  work  of  years  for  him,  in  giving  him  the  position  he  required 
in  the  community  where  his  lot  was  cast.  He  became  from  that 
moment,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  personage,  with  a  name  and  stand- 
ing of  his  own.  The  verdict  of  Clary's  Grove  was  unanimous 
that  he  was  "the  cleverest  fellow  that  had  ever  broke  into  the 
settlement. " 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  79. 

Lincoln  Meets  Young  Yates,  the  Future  War-Governor,  and  Upsets 

a  Bowl  of  Milk 

W.  G.  Greene  tells  us  that  while  he  was  a  student  at  the  Illinois 
College  at  Jacksonville,  he  became  acquainted  wdth  Richard  Yates, 
also  a  student  there.  On  one  occasion,  while  Yates  was  a  guest  of 
Greene's  during  a  vacation,  the  latter  took  him  up  to  make  him 
acquainted  with  Lincoln.  They  found  Abe  flat  on  his  back  on  a 
cellar-door,  reading  a  newspaper.  Greene  introduced  the  two,  and 
thus  the  acquaintance  began  between  the  future  War  Governor  of 
Illinois  and  the  future  President. 


QO 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


On  this  same  occasion,  says  Mr.  Greene,  Lincoln  accepted  an 
invitation  to  go  home  and  take  dinner  with  him  and  Yates.  While 
they  were  at  the  table,  Lincoln,  in  his  awkwardness,  managed  to 
upset  his  bowl  of  bread  and  milk.  Mr.  Greene  well  recollects  the 
confusion   with  which  the  accident  covered   Mr.   Lincoln,   which 


From  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks. 

CLERKING  IN  OFFUTT'S  STORE. 

Greene's  mother,  the  hostess,  who  was  always  attached  to  the  un- 
gainly backwoodsman,  tried  to  relieve  as  best  she  could  by  declaring 
it  was  her  fault  in  setting  the  bowl  at  the  wrong  place  at  the  table. 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  102. 

Two  Instances  of  His  "Sensitive  Honesty" 

Lincoln  could  not  rest  for  one  instant  under  the  consciousness 
that  he  had,  even  unwittingly,  defrauded  anybody.  On  one  occa- 
sion, while  clerking  in  Offutt's  store,   ...  he  sold  a  woman  a  little 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  91 

■  I  inl.  ■      I  II. 

bale  of  goods,  amounting  in  value,  by  the  reckoning,  to  two  dollars 
and  twenty  cents.  He  received  the  money  and  the  woman  went 
away.  On  adding  the  items  of  the  bill  again  to  make  himself  sure 
of  correctness,  he  found  that  he  had  taken  six  and  a  quarter  cents 
too  much.  It  was  night  and,  closing  and  locking  the  store,  he 
started  out  on  foot,  a  distance  of  two  or  three  miles,  for  the  house 
of  his  defrauded  customer,  and  delivering  over  to  her  the  sum  whose 
possession  had  so  much  troubled  him,  went  home  satisfied. 

On  another  occasion,  just  as  he  was  closing  the  store  for  the 
night,  a  woman  entered  and  asked  for  a  half  pound  of  tea.  The  tea 
was  weighed  out  and  paid  for,  and  the  store  was  left  for  the  night. 
The  next  morning  Lincoln  entered  to  begin  the  duties  of  the  day, 
when  he  discovered  a  four-ounce  weight  on  the  scales.  He  saw 
at  once  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  and,  shutting  the  store,  he  took 
a  long  walk  before  breakfast  to  deliver  the  remainder  of  the  tea. 
These  are  humble  incidents,  but  they  illustrate  the  man's  perfect 
conscientiousness — his  sensitive  honesty — better,  perhaps,  than 
they  would  if  they  were  of  greater  moment. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Paul  Selby,  page  6i. 

Borrows  a  Grammar  and  Masters  It 

Abe's  duties  in  Offutt's  store  were  not  of  a  character  to  monopo- 
lize the  whole  of  his  time,  and  he  soon  began  to  think  that  here 
was  a  fine  opportunity  to  remedy  some  of  the  defects  in  his 
education. 

[During  the  time  he  was  working  for  Offutt,  hands  being  scarce, 
Lincoln  turned  in  and  cut  down  trees,  and  spflit  enough  rails  for 
Offutt  to  make  a  pen  sufficiently  large  to  contain  a  thousand  hogs.] 
He  could  read,  write,  and  cipher  as  well  as  most  men;  but  as  his 
popularity  was  growing  daily,  and  his  ambition  keeping  pace,  he 
feared  that  he  might  shortly  be  called  to  act  in  some  public  capacity 
which  would  require  him  to  speak  his  own  language  with  some 
regard  to  the  rules  of  grammar, — of  which,  according  to  his  own 
confession,  he  knew  nothing  at  all.  He  mentioned  his  trouble  to 
the  schoolmaster,  saying, 

"  I  have  a  notion  to  study  English  grammar.  " 

"  If  you  expect  to  go  before  the  public  in  any  capacity,  "  replied 
Mr.  (Mentor)  Graham,  "  I  think  it  the  best  thing  you  can  do.  " 

"  If  I  had  a  grammar, "  replied  Abe,  "  I  would  commence  now. " 


92  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

There  was  no  grammar  to  be  had  about  New  Salem;  but  the 
schoolmaster,  having  kept  the  run  of  that  species  of  property, 
gladdened  Abe's  heart  by  telling  him  that  he  knew  where  there 
was  one. 

Aberose  from  the  breakfast  at  which  he  was  sitting,  and  learn- 
ing that  the  book  w^as  at  Vaner's,  only  six  miles  distant,  set  off  as 
hard  as  he  could  tramp.  It  seemed  to  Mr.  Graham  a  very  little 
while  until  he  returned  and  announced,  with  great  pleasure,  that  he 
had  a  copy  of  Kirkham's  Grammar.  He  then  turned  his  immediate 
and  undivided  attention  to  the  study  of  it.  Sometimes,  when 
business  was  not  particularly  brisk,  he  would  lie  under  a  shade-tree 
in  front  of  the  store,  and  pore  over  the  book;  at  other  times  a  cus- 
tomer would  find  him  stretched  on  the  counter  intently  engaged  in 
the  same  way.  But  the  store  was  a  bad  place  for  study ;  and  he 
was  often  seen  quietly  slipping  out  of  the  village,  as  if  he  wished  to 
avoid  observation,  when,  if  successful  in  getting  off  alone,  he  would 
spend  hours  in  the  woods,  "mastering  a  book,"  or  in  a  state  of 
profound  abstraction. 

He  kept  up  his  old  habit  of  sitting  up  late  at  night;  but,  as 
lights.  .  .  .were  expensive,  the  village  cooper  permitted  him  to 
sit  in  his  shop,  where  he  burnt  the  shavings,  and  kept  a  blazing  fire 
to  read  by,  when  every  one  else  was  in  bed.  The  Greenes  lent  him 
books ;  the  schoolmaster  gave  him  instruction  in  the  store,  on  the 
road,  or  in  the  meadows.  Every  visitor  to  New  Salem  who  made  the 
least  pretension  to  scholarship  was  waylaid  by  Abe,  and  required  to 
explain  something  w^hich  he  could  not  understand. 

The  result  of  it  all  was,  that  the  village  and  the  surrounding 
country  wondered  at  his  gro\\i:h  in  knowledge,  and  he  soon  became 
as  famous  for  the  goodness  of  his  understanding  as  for  the  muscular 
power  of  his  body,  and  the  unfailing  humor  of  his  talk. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  ps. 

Gives  a  Bully  a  Dose  of  "Smartweed" 

"While  showing  goods  to  two  or  three  women  in  Offutt's  store 
one  day,  a  bully  came  in  and  began  to  talk  in  an  offensive  manner, 
using  much  profanity,  and  evidently  wishing  to  provoke  a  quarrel. 
Lincoln  leaned  over  the  counter  and  begged  him,  as  ladies  were 
present,  not  to  indulge  in  such  talk.  The  bully  retorted  that  the 
opportunity  had  come  for  which  he  had  long  sought,  and  he  would 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  93 

like  to  see  the  man  who  could  hinder  him  from  saying  anything 
he  might  choose  to  say.  Lincoln,  still  cool,  told  him  that  if  he 
would  wait  until  the  ladies  retired,  he  would  hear  what  he  had  to 
say,  and  give  him  any  satisfaction  he  desired. 

"As  soon  as  the  women  were  gone,  the  man  became  furious. 
Lincoln  heard  his  boasts  and  his  abuse  for  a  time,  and  finding  that 
he  was  not  to  be  put  off  without  a  fight,  said,  'Well,  if  you 
must  be  w^hipped,  I  suppose  I  may  as  well  whip  you  as  any  other 
man. ' 

.  "This  was  just  what  the  bully  had  been  seeking,  he  said,  so  out 
of  doors  they  went.  Lincol;i  made  short  work  of  him.  He  threw 
him  upon  the  ground  and  held  him  there  as  if  he  were  a  child,  and 
gathering  some  "  smartweed  "  which  grew  upon  the  spot,  rubbed  it 
into  his  face  and  eyes  until  the  fellow  bellowed  with  pain. 

"Lincoln  did  all  this  without  a  particle  of  anger,  and  when  the 
job  was  finished,  went  immediately  for  water,  washed  his  victim's 
face,  and  did  everything  he  could  to  alleviate  his  victim's  distress. 
The  upshot  of  the  matter  was  that  the  man  became  his  life-long 
friend,  and  was  a  better  man  from  that  day. " 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  P.  Browne,  page  99. 

How  Abe  Induced  his  Fellow-Clerk  to  Quit  Gambling 

Denton  Offutt's  restless  ambition  demanded  other  worlds  to 
conquer  than  a  small  store,  so  he  added  to  the  list  of  mercantile 
ventures  a  lease  of  the  mill,  and  he  then  employed  William  G.  Greene, 
a  son  of  a  neighboring  family,  aged  eighteen  or  nineteen  years,  as 
an  assistant.  Between  the  two  clerks  a  friendship  and  cordiality 
sprang  up  which  lasted  as  long  as  the  life  of  the  senior 

Each  morning  the  two  clerks,  and  sometimes  the  proprietor, 
would  wend  their  way  down  the  slanting  road  which  led  to  the 
bottom  land  northward,  and  proceed  up  the  State  road  for  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  to  a  primitive  farmstead  owned  by  one  BowHng 
Green,  where  they  would  get  their  breakfast,  generally  of  bread  and 
milk.  They  would  greet  their  motherly  hostess  as  "Aunt  Nancy.  " 
At  noon  and  evening  they  would  repeat  their  custom,  for  Abe's 
boarding-place  was  at  this  farm,  and  they  slept  on  a  narrow  cot  in 
the  loft  of  the  store. 

Lincoln's  morals  were  singularly  chaste  and  pure  for  that  day. 
Although  the  customs  were  well-nigh  universal  to  drink,  chew, 


94 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


smoke  and  habitually  swear,  he  indulged  in  none  of  these  habits. 
Mr.  Greene  avers  that  he  never  saw  Lincoln  take  a  drink  of  liquor 
but  once,  and  then  he  spat  it  out  immediately ;  that  he  never  chewed 
or  smoked,  and  that  he  never  swore  but  once  in  his  presence.  .  .  . 
William  Greene  was,  like  ordinary  youth  in  those  days,  ad- 
dicted to  petty  gambling,  betting,  etc.    Lincoln  perceived  it,  and 

one  day  said  to  his 


fellow-clerk : 

"Billy,    you 

ought  to  stop  gam- 

i        bling  with   Estep.  " 

Greene  replied, 
"I'm  ninety  cents 
behind  and  I  can't 
quit  till  I've  won  it 
back." 

Said  Lincoln, 
"If  I'll  help  you  win 
that  back,  will  you 
promise  never  to 
gamble  again  ? ' ' 

Greene  reflect- 
ed a  moment  and 
made  the  promise. 
Lincoln  then  said, 
"  Here  are  hats  on 
sale  at  seven  dollars 
each,  and  you  need 

The  victim  appeared.  ^^^  NoW,    whcU 

Estep  comes,  you  draw  him  on  by  degrees,  and  finally  bet  him 
one  of  those  hats  that  I  can  lift  a  full  forty -gallon  barrel  of  whis- 
key, and  take  a  drink  out  of  the  bung-hole.  " 

Accordingly  they  fixed  the  barrel  so  that  the  bung-hole  would  be 
in  the  right  place,  and  when  the  victim  appeared,  after  a  little  par- 
leying and  bantering,  the  bet  was  made;  Lincoln  then  squatted 
down  and  lifted  one  end  of  the  barrel  on  one  knee,  and  then  lifted 
the  other  end  on  the  other  knee,  and,  stooping  over,  actually  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  a  drink  out  of  the  bung-hole,  which  he  immediately 
spat  out.     Greene  thus  won  the  hat  and  never  gambled  again. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  95 

Offutt  soon  "busted  up,"  and  left  his  creditors  in  the  lurch; 
and  Lincoln  did  odd  jobs  when  he  could,  for  a  time.  He  had  an 
assured  home  at  Bowling  Green's  and  another  at  Jack  Armstrong's 
(the  Clary's  Grove  champion) ;  and  when  under  the  stress  of  difB- 
culties,  he  wended  his  way  to  one  or  the  other  with  perfect  freedom, 
land  was  a  welcome  guest. 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  84. 

Becomes  a  Candidate  for  the  First  Time 

Before  the  winter  was  ended  he  had  become  the  most  popular 
man  in  New  Salem.  Although  he  was  but  twenty-three  years  of  age 
in  February,  1832;  had  never  been  at  school  an  entire  year;  had 
never  made  a  speech,  except  in  debating  clubs  or  by  the  roadside ; 
had  read  only  the  books  he  could  pick  up,  and  known  only  the  men 
of  the  poor,  out-of-the-w^ay  towns  in  which  he  had  lived,  yet, 
"encouraged  by  his  great  popularity  among  his  immediate  neigh- 
bors' "  as  he  says,  he  announced  himself  in  March,  1832,  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State 

At  that  time  the  State  of  Illinois  — as,  indeed,  the  whole  United 
States — was  convinced  that  the  future  of  the  country  depended  on 
the  opening  of  canals  and  railroads,  and  the  clearing  out  of  the  rivers. 
In  the  Sangamon  country  the  population  felt  that  a  quick  way  of 
getting  to  Beardstown  on  the  Illinois  River,  to  which  point  the 
steamer  came  from  the  Mississippi,  was,  as  Lincoln  puts  it  in  his 
circular,  using  a  phrase  of  his  hero.  Clay,  "indispensably  necessary.  " 
Of  course  a  railroad  was  the  dream  of  the  settlers ;  but  when  it  was 
considered  seriously  there  was  always,  as  Lincoln  says,  "  a  heart- 
appalling  shock  accompanying  the  amount  of  its  cost,  which  forces 
us  to  shrink  from  our  pleasing  anticipations.  " 

"The  probable  cost  of  this  contemplated  railroad,"  he  states 
in  his  circular,  "is  estimated  at  two  hundred  and  ninety  thousand 
dollars ;  the  bare  statement  of  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  sufficient 
to  justify  the  belief  that  the  improvement  of  the  Sangamon  River 
is  an  object  much  better  suited  to  our  infant  resources." 

The  only  preliminary  expected  of  a  candidate  for  the  legislature 
of  Illinois  at  that  date  was  an  announcement  stating  his  "  sentiments 
with  regard  to  local  affairs. ' '  The  circular  in  which  Lincoln  complied 
with  this  custom  was  a  document  of  about  two  thousand  words, 


96  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

.  .  .  .  [in  which  he  gave  a  dignified  account  of  his  experiences 
on  the  Sangamon  and  beside  it,  as  flatboatman  and  miller,  which 
he  concluded  as  follows:] 

"  Finally,  I  believe  the  improvement  of  the  Sangamon  River  to 
be  vastly  important  and  highly  desirable  to  the  people  of  the 
country ;  and,  if  elected,  any  measure  in  the  legislature  having  this 
for  its  object,  which  may  appear  judicious,  will  meet  my  approba- 
tion and  receive  my  support.  " 

....  The  audacity  of  a  young  man  in  his  position  presenting 
himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  legislature  is  fully  equalled  by  the, 
humility  of  the  closing  paragraph  of  his  announcement : 

"  But,  fellow  citizens,  I  shall  conclude.  Considering  the  great 
degree  of  modesty  which  should  always  attend  youth,  it  is  probable 
I  have  already  been  more  presuming  than  becomes  me.  However, 
upon  the  subjects  of  which  I  have  treated,  I  have  spoken  as  I  have 
thought.  I  may  be  wrong  in  regard  to  any  or  all  of  them, 
but,  holding  it  a  sound  maxim  that  it  is  better  only  some- 
times to  be  right  than  at  all  times  to  be  wrong,  so  soon  as  I 
discover  my  opinions  to  be  erroneous,  I  shall  be  ready  to  announce 
them. 

"  Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambition.  Whether 
it  is  true  or  not,  I  can  say  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other  so  great  as 
that  of  being  truly  esteemed  of  my  fellow-men  by  rendering  myself 
worthy  of  their  esteem.  How  far  I  shall  succeed  in  gratifying  this 
ambition  is  yet  to  be  developed.  I  am  young,  and  unknown  to 
many  of  you.  I  was  born,  and  have  ever  remained,  in  the  most 
humble  walks  of  life.  I  have  no  wealthy  or  popular  relations  or 
friends  to  recommend  me.  My  case  is  thrown  exclusively  upon  the 
independent  voters  of  the  county;  and,  if  elected,  they  will  have 
conferred  a  favor  upon  me  for  which  I  shall  be  unremitting  in  my 
labors  to  compensate.  But,  if  the  good  people  in  their  wisdom 
shall  see  fit  to  keep  me  in  the  background,  I  have  been  too  familiar 
with  disappointments  to  be  very  much  chagrined." 

Very  soon  after  Lincoln  had  distributed  his  hand-bills,  en- 
thusiasm on  the  subject  of  the  opening  of  the  Sangamon  rose  to  a 
fever. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  125. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  '  97 


A  "  Try"-Weekly  Steamer—"  Goes  Up  One  Week,  and  Tries  to 

Come  Down  the  Next!" 

The  early  spring  of  1832  brought  to  Springfield  and  New  Salem 
a  most  joyful  announcement.  It  was  the  news  of  the  coming  of  a 
steamboat  up  the  Sangamon  River — proof  incontestable  that  the 

stream  w^as  navigable Great  excitement  and  unbounded 

enthusiasm  followed  this  announcement.  Springfield,  New  Salem 
and  all  the  other  towns  along  the  now  interesting  Sangamon  were  to 
be  connected  by  water  with  the  outside  world.  Public  meetings, 
with  the  accompaniment  of  long  subscription  lists,  were  held ;  the 
merchants  of  Springfield  advertised  the  arrival  of  goods  "  direct 
from  the  East  per  steamer  Talisman.'"  The  mails  were  promised 
as  often  as  once  a  week  from  the  same  direction ;  all  the  land 
adjoining  each  enterprising  and  aspiring  village  along  the  river  was 
subdivided  into  town  lots — in  fact,  the  whole  region  began  to  feel 
the  stimulating  effects  of  what,  in  later  days,  would  have  been 
called  a  "boom. " 

....  In  response  to  the  suggestion  of  Captain  Bogue  (master 
of  the  steamboat  ra/i>maw),  made  from  Cincinnati,  a  number  0/ 
citizens — Lincoln  among  them — had  gone  down  the  river  to  Beards- 
town  to  meet  the  vessel  as  she  emerged  from  the  Illinois.  These 
were  armed  with  axes  with  long  handles,  to  cut  away,  as  Bogue  had 
recommended,  "branches  of  trees  hanging  over  from  the  banks." 
After  having  passed  New  Salem,  I  (W.  H.  Herndon)  and  other 
boy  )  on  horseback  followed  the  boat,  riding  along  the  river's  bank 
as  far  as  Bogue's  mill  where  she  tied  up.  There  we  went  aboard, 
and,  lost  in  boyish  wonder,  feasted  our  eyes  on  the  splendor  of  her 
intei  lor  decorations. 

On  the  Talisman's  arrival  at  Springfield,  or  as  near  Springfield 
as  the  river  ran,  the  crew  of  the  boat  were  given  a  reception  and 

dance  in  the   court-house Then  the   receding  waters 

adm  mished  her  officers  that,  unless  they  proposed  spending  the 
remriinder  of  the  year  there,  they  must  head  her  down  stream.  In 
this  emergency  recourse  was  had  to  my  cousin  Rowan  Herndon, 
who  had  had  no  little  experience  as  a  boatman,  and  who  recom- 
mended the  employment  of  Lincoln  as  a  skilful  assistant. 

These  two  inland  navigators  undertook  the  contract  of  piloting 
the  vessel    ....  through  the  uncertain  channel  of  the  Sangamon 


98  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

to  the  Illinois  River.  The  average  speed  was  four  miles  a  day.  .  .  . 
Lincoln  and  Herndon,  in  charge  of  the  vessel,  piloted  her  through 
to  Beardstown.  They  were  paid  forty  dollars  each,  according  to 
contract,  and  bidding  adieu  to  the  Talisman's  officers  and  crew, 
set  out  on  foot  for  New  Salem  again.  A  few  months  latter  the 
Talisman  caught  fire  at  the  wharf  in  St.  Louis  and  went  up  in  flames. 

Herndon  s  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  77. 

Why  He  Was  Called  "Honest  Abe" 

The  year  that  Lincoln  was  in  Denton  Offutt's  store.  .  .  .was 
one  of  great  advances  in  many  respects.  He  had  made  new  and 
valuable  acquaintances,  read  many  books,  mastered  the  grammar 
of  his  own  tongue,  won  multitudes  of  friends,  and  become  ready 
for  a  step  still  further  in  advance.  Those  who  could  appreciate 
brains  respected  him,  and  those  whose  ideas  of  a  man  related  to  his 
muscles  w^ere  devoted  to  him.  It  was  while  he  was  performing  the 
work  of  the  store  that  he  acquired  the  sobriquet,  "  Honest  Abe" — a 
characterization  that  he  never  dishonored,  and  an  abbreviation  that 
he  never  outgrew.  He  was  judge,  arbitrator,  referee,  umpire,, 
authority,  in  all  disputes,  games  and  matches  of  man-flesh,  horse- 
flesh, a  pacificator  in  all  quarrels;  everybody's  friend;  the  best- 
natured,  the  most  sensible,  the  best -informed,  the  most  modest  and 
unassuming,  the  kindest,  gentlest,  roughest,  strongest,  best  fellow 
in  all  New  Salem  and  the  region  round  about. 

Lije  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  47, 

A  "Raw"  Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 

One  morning  in  April  a  messenger  from  the  governor  of  the 
State  rode  into  New  Salem,  scattering  circulars.  These  circulars 
contained  an  address  from  Governor  Reynolds  to  the  militia  of  the 
northwest  section  of  the  State,  announcing  that  the  British  band  of 
Sacs  and  other  hostile  Indians,  headed  by  Black  Hawk,  had  invaded 
the  Rock  River  country,  to  the  great  terror  of  the  frontier  inhabit- 
ants ;  and  calling  upon  the  citizens  who  were  willing  to  aid  in  repel- 
ling them,  to  rendezvous  at  Beardstown  within  a  week 

Preparations  were  quickly  made,  and  by  April  22  nd  the  men 
were  at  Beardstow^n.  The  day  before,  at  Richland,  Sangamon 
County,  Lincoln  had  been  elected  to  the  captaincy  of  the  company 
from  Sangamon  to  which  he  belonged. 


SIX   YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  99 

His  friend  Greene  gave  another  reason  than  ambition  to  ex- 
plain his  desire  for  the  captaincy.  One  of  the  "odd  jobs"  which 
Lincoln  had  taken  since  coming  into  Illinois.was  working  in  a  saw- 
mill for  a  man  named  Kirkpatrick.  In  hiring  Lincoln,  Kirkpatrick 
had  promised  to  buy  him  a  cant-hook  with  which  to  move  heav}'' 
logs.  Lincoln  had  proposed,  if  Kirkpatrick  would  give  him  the  two 
dollars  which  the  cant-hook  would  cost,  to  move  the  logs  with  a 
a  common  handspike.  This  the  proprietor  had  agreed  to,  but  when 
pay-day  came  he  refused  to  keep  his  word. 

When  the  Sangamon  company  of  volunteers  was  formed, 
Kirkpatrick  aspired  to  the  captaincy,  and  Lincoln,  knowing  it, 
said  to  Greene : 

"  Bill,  I  believe  I  can  now  make  Kirkpatrick  pay  that  two 
dollars  he  owes  me  on  the  cant-hook.  I'll  run  against  him  for 
captain. " 

So  Lincoln  became  a  candidate.  The  vote  was  taken  in  a  field 
by  directing  the  men,  at  the  command,  "march,"  to  assemble 
around  the  one  they  wanted  for  captain.  When  the  order  was  given 
three-fourths  of  the  men  gathered  around  Lincoln.  In  his  curious 
third-person  biography  Lincoln  says  he  was  elected,  "to  his  own 
surprise;"  and  adds,  "  He  says  he  has  not  since  had  any  success  in 
life  which  gave  him  so  much  satisfaction. " 

Lincoln  himself  was  not  familiar  with  military  tactics,  and 
made  many  blunders  of  which  he  used  to  tell  afterwards  with  relish. 
One  of  his  early  experiences  in  handling  his  company  is  particularly 
amusing.  He  was  marching  with  a  front  of  over  twenty  men  across 
a  field,  when  he  desired  to  pass  through  a  gateway  into  the  next 
inclosure.  '' 

"  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me,  "  said  he,  "  remember  the  proper 
word  for  getting  my  company  endwise,  so  that  it  could  get  through 
the  gate ;  so,  as  we  came  near  the  gate,  I  shouted,  'This  company 
is  dismissed  for  two  minutes,  w^hen  it  will  fall  in  again  on  the 
other  side  of  the  gate!'  " 

Nor  was  it  only  his  ignorance  of  the  manual  which  caused  him 
trouble.  He  was  so  unfainiliar  with  camp  discipline  that  he  once 
had  his  sword  taken  from  him  for  shooting  within  limits.  Another 
disgrace  he  suffered  was  on  account  of  his  disorderly  company. 
The  men,  unknown  to  him,  stole  a  quantity  of  liquor  one  night,  and 
the  next  morning  were  too  drimk  to  fall  in  when  the  order  was  given 


loo  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

to  march.     For  their  lawlessness  Lincoln  wore  a  wooden  sword  two 
days. 

But  none  of  these  small  difficulties  injured  his  standing  with 
the  company.  Lincoln  was  tactful,  and  he  joined  his  men  in  sports 
as  well  as  duties.  They  soon  grew  so  proud  of  his  quick  wit  and 
great  strength  that  they  obeyed  him  because  they  admired  him. 
No  amount  of  military  tactics  could  have  secured  from  the  volun- 
teers the  cheerful  following  he  won  by  his  personal  qualities. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  134. 

Risked  His  Life  in  Rescuing  an  Indian 

Into  the  camp  of  the  Sangamon  company .  .  .  there  wandered 
one  day,  a  poor  forlorn,  solitary,  hungry,  and  helpless  old  Indian 
seeking  charity. 

"Injun  white  man's  friend,  "  he  exclaimed,  as  he  extended  his 
hand  in  supplication.  "See — paper  .  .  .  talks;  from  big  white 
war  chief,  "  and  he  drew  from  his  belt  a  letter,  which  he  offered  as 
evidence  of  friendship. 

But  the  soldiers  into  whose  presence  he  had  thrust  himself  had 
no  faith  in  such  assurances;  they  had  been  looking  for  Indians; 
here  was  one  at  last — no  doubt  a  spy — perhaps  Black  Hawk 
himself.      .    .    . 

"String  him  up!  Scalp  him!  Kill  him!"  they  cried.  "He's  a 
sure -enough  Injun.  He's  what  we're  after.  Rush  him  along,  we'll 
settle  him!" 

In  vain  the  poor  old  red  man  fluttered  the  letter  in  their  faces. 

"  Me  good  Injun,  "  he  protested ;  "  white  chief  say  so.  See  'um 
talking  paper. "    ^ 

"Get  out;  can't  play  that  forgery  on  us.  Shoot  him!  Shoot 
him!"  the  soldiers  shouted,  and  with  that  they  hustled  the  old 
Indian  about  so  roughly  and  made  so  much  noise  over  their  prize 
that  they  aroused  their  captain,  who  came  springing  from  his  tent. 

"What's  all  this  row  about?"     he  demanded 

At  once  his  glance  fell  upon  the  badgered  Indian,  and,  dashing 
in  among  his  men,  he  scattered  them  to  right  and  left  and  placed 
a  protecting  hand  upon  the  red  fugitive's  shoulder. 

"Stand  back,  all  of  you!"  he  shouted.  "Aren't  you  ashamed 
of  yourselves — all  of  you  piling  on  one  poor  old  redskin?  What 
are  you  thinking  of?     Would  you  kill  an  unprotected  man?" 


From  Historic  Americans,  Elbridge  S.  Brooks. 

CAPTAIN  LINCOLN  DEFENDING  THE  INDIAN 

"I'll  fight  you  aU,"  said  the  captain,  "  one  after  the  other,  just  as  you  come.     Take  it  out 
of  me  if  you  can,  but  you  shan't  touch  this  Injun." 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  loi 


"A  spy!  He's  a  spy!"  cried  the  discomfited  soldiers,  gathering 
again  about  their  prey.  The  poor  old  Indian  read  his  fate  in  their 
eyes.  He  crouched  low  at  the  captain's  feet,  recognizing  in  him  his 
only  protector. 

"Fall  back,  men;  fall  back!"  the  captain  commanded.  "Let 
the  Injun  go.  He  hasn't  done  anything  to  you.  He  can't 
hurt   you." 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?"  demanded  one  of  the  ringleaders, 
brandishing  his  rifle.  "Let  us  have  him.  We're  not  afraid,  even 
if  you  are  a  coward.  " 

The  tall  young  captain  faced  his  accuser  and  proceeded  to  roll 
up  his  sleeves  deliberately  and  wHth  unmistakable  meaning. 

"  Who  says  I'm  a  coward? "  he  demanded. 

The  implied  challenge  received  no  response.  The  Sangamon 
boys  knew  the  length  and  strength  of  those*  brawny  arms. 

"Get  out,  Cap'n;  that's  not  fair,"  they  said.  "You're 
bigger 'n  we  are,  and  heavier.     You  don't  give  us  a  show.  " 

"  I'll  give  you  all  the  show  you  want,  boys,  "  said  the  captain. 
"  More'n  you'll  give  this  Injun.  I'll  tell  you  what :  I'll  fight  you  all, 
one  after  the  other,  just  as  you  come.  Take  it  out  of  me  if  you  can, 
but  you  shan't  touch  this  Injun.  When  a  man  comes  to  me  for 
help  he's  going  to  get  it,  if  I  have  to  lick  all  Sangamon  County.  " 

There  was  no  acceptance  of  that  challenge,  either.  The 
Indian,  who  proved  to  be  one  of  the  friendly  Indians  from  General 
Cass's  Division,  was  given  over  to  the  captain;  the  men  dispersed; 
the  trouble  was  over ;  no  man  in  the  camp  or  all  the  camps  together, 
had  any  desire  to  try  a  wrestle  with  Capt.  Abraham  Lincoln,  who 
protected  a  fugitive  Indian  from  the  ferocity  of  that  unruly  set  of 
raw  recruits ...  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  " 

Historic  Americans,  Elbridge  S.  Brooks,  page  336. 

Gruesome  Picture  Painted  by  Lincoln  Himself 

Many  years  afterward, — in  fact,  while  Lincoln  was  President, — 
he  referred  to  those  early  scenes  in  a  way  that  illustrates .    .    .    .his 

power  of  recalling  the  minutest  incidents  of  his  past  life 

Particularly,  he  remembered  his  share  in  the  Black  Hawk  War. 

He  referred  to  his  part  of  the  campaign  lightly,  and  said  that 
he  saw  but  very  little  fighting.  But  he  remembered  coming  on  a 
camp  of  white  scouts  one  morning  just  as  the  sun  was  rising. 


102  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

The  Indians  had  surprised  the  camp,  and  had  killed  and  scalped 
every  man. 

"I  remember  just  how  those  men  looked,"  said  Lincoln,  "as 
we  rode  up  the  hill  where  the  camp  was.  The  red  light  of  the  morn- 
ing sun  was  streaming  upon  them  as  they  lay,  heads  toward  us,  on 
the  ground,  and  every  man  had  a  round  red  spot  on  the  top  of  his 
head,  about  as  big  as  a  dollar,  where  the  redskins  had  taken  his 
scalp.  It  was  frightful,  but  it  was  grotesque,  and  the  red  sunlight 
seemed  to  paint  everything  all  over. " 

Lincoln  paused,  as  if  recalling  the  vivid  picture,  and  added, 
somewhat  irrelevantly,. 

"  I  remember  that  one  man  had  buckskin  breeches  on. " 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  to6. 

Half-Starved  but  Good-Natured  Soldiers 

At  times  the  soldiers  were  hard-pressed  for  food 

"At  an  old  Winnebago  town  called  Turtle  Village,"  narrates  a 
member  of  the  company,  "  after  stretching  our  rations  over  nearly 
four  days,  one  of  our  mess,  an  old  acquaintance  of  Lincoln,  G.  B. 
Fanchier,  shot  a  dove,  and  having  a  gill  of  flour  left,  we  made  a 
gallon  and  a  half  of  delicious  soup  in  an  old  tin  bucket  that  had  been 
lost  by  Indians.  This  soup  we  divided  among  several  messes  that 
were  hungrier  than  we  were  and  our  own  mess,  by  pouring  in  each 
man's  cup  a  portion  of  it." 

....  "At  another  time,  in  the  extreme  northern  part  of 
Illinois,  we  had  been  very  hungry  for  two  days  when  we  came  upon 
a  new  cabin  on  the  edge  of  the  prairie,  that  the  family  had  vacated 
from  fear  of  losing  their  scalps.  There  were  plenty  of  chickens 
about  the  place  that  were  hungrier  than  we  ourselves  were.  .  .  . 
The  others  went  to  running,  clubbing  and  shooting  them  as 
long  as  they  could  be  found.  Whilst  the  killing  was  going  on 
I  climbed  to  the  ridge-pole  of  the  smoke-house  to  see  distinctly 
what  I  saw  obscurely  from  the  ground,  and  behold!  the 
cleanest,  sweetest  jowl  I  ever  saw — alone,  half  hid  by  boards  and 
ridge-pole,  stuck  up,  no  doubt,  for  future  use.  By  this  time 
many  of  the  chickens  were  on  the  fire,  broiling,  for  want  of 
grease  or  gravy  to  fry  them  in.  Some  practical  fellow  proposed 
to  throw  in  with  the  fowls  enough  bacon  to  convert   broiling 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  103 


into   frying;   the  proposition   was   adopted,   and   they  were  soon 

fried. 

"We  began  to  eat  the  tough,  dry  chickens  with  alternating 
mouthfuls  of  jowl,  when  Lincoln  came  to  the  repast  with  the  query, 

'"Eating  chicken,  boys?' 

'"Not  much,  sir,'  I  responded 

'"It  is  much  like  eating  saddle-bags, '  he  said;  'but  I  think  the 
stomach  can  accomplish  much  to-day;  what  have  you  got  there 
with  the  skeleton,  George?' 

"  'We  did  have  a  sweet  jowl  of  a  hog,  sir,'  I  answered,  'but  you 
are  nearly  too  late  for  your  share, '  at  the  same  time  making  room 
for  him  to  approach  the  elm-bark  dish.  He  ate  the  bacon  a  mo- 
ment, then  commenced  dividing  by  mouthfuls  to  the  boys  from 
other  messes,  who  came  to  'see  what  Abe  was  at,'  and  saying  many 
quaint  and  funny  things  suited  to  the  time  and  the  jowl.  " 

The  captain,  it  will  be  seen,  by  his  "freedom  without famihar- 
ity, "  and  his  "courtesy  without  condescension,"  was  fast  making 
inroads  on  the  respect  of  his  rude  but  appreciative  men. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  88. 

Re-enlisted  as  a  "Dignified  Private" 

The  term  for  which  the  volunteers  had  enlisted  had  now  ex- 
pired, and  the  majority,  tiring  of  the  service,  the  novelty  of  which 
had  worn  off,  and  longing  for  the  comforts  and  good  cheer  of  their 
homes,  refused  either  to  re-enlist  or  render  further  service.  They 
turned  their  faces  homeward,  each  with  his  appetite  for  military 
glory  well  satiated. 

But  the  war  was  not  over,  and  the  mighty  Black  Hawk  was 
still  east  of  the  Mississippi.  A  few  remained  and  re-enlisted. 
Among  them  was  Lincoln.  This  time,  eschewing  the  responsibility 
of  a  captaincy  ....  he  entered  the  company  of  Elijah  lies  as 
a  dignified  private 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  home;  he  had  cut  loose  from  his  parents, 
from  the  Hankses  and  the  Johnstons;  he  left  behind  him  no 
anxious  wife  and  children;  and  no  chair  before  a  warm  fireside 
remained  vacant  for  him. 

"I  was  out  of  work,"  he  said  to  me  once,  "and  I  could  do 
nothing  better  than  to  enlist  again. " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  go. 


I04  '         THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"The  Strongest  Man  I  Ever  Met" 

A  trifling  incident  exhibited  the  force  of  his  will  and  the 
estimation  in  which  Lincoln  was  held  by  his  followers.  There  was 
in  Captain  Henry  L.  Webb's  company  from  Union  County  a  very 
strong  and  athletic  man  named  Nathan  M.  Thompson,  nicknamed 
"Dow"  Thompson.  The  question  of  comparative  muscular 
strength  arising  between  him  and  Lincoln,  they  resorted  to  a  wrest- 
ling match,  in  order  to  decide  it. 

After  struggling  for  a  while  with  no  advantage  either  way, 
Lincoln  said : 

"  This  is  the  strongest  man  I  ever  met.  " 

Soon  thereafter,  amid  great  and  growing  excitement,  Lincoln 
was  fairly  thrown.  This  was  for  the  first  time  in  his  life.  The 
wrestlers  took  hold  again,  and  a  second  time  Lincoln  was  thrown. 
Instantly  a  hundred  men  jerked  off  their  coats  crying, 

"Fouir' 

An  equal  number  on  the  other  side  followed  suit,  crying, 

"We'll  see  if  it  was/' 

A  deadly  fight  seemed  imminent,  but  Lincoln  commanded 
attention,  and  said : 

"  Boys,  this  man  can  throw  me  fairly,  if  he  didn't  do  it  this 
time;  so  let  us  give  up  that  I  was  beaten  fairly. " 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  97. 

Distinguished  Men  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 

In  a  war  so  meager  in  military  exploit,  it  is  curious  to  note  how 
many  persons  then  or  later  distinguished  had  part — Andrew  Jackson 
being  Commander-in-chief,  ex-ojficio.  Major-General  Scott  had 
set  out  with  a  small  body  of  regulars,  to  put  an  end  to  the  affair  by 
taking  the  field  in  person.  Arrived  at  Chicago,  then  beginning  to 
grow  from  a  mere  military  fort  into  a  thin,  straggling  village,  he  met 
a  more  formidable  foe  than  he  was  seeking,  in  the  form  of  Asiatic 

cholera He  had  not  been  fully  restored  to  health  .... 

when  news  came  that  Black  Hawk  was  beaten  and  the  war  was  over. 

Other  officers  connected  with  this  campaign  were  Zachary 
Taylor,  then  a  Colonel  of  the  regular  army,  and  in  command  of  the 
post  of  Fort  Crawford,  at  Prairie  du  Chien ;  Jefferson  Davis,  later 
his  son-in-law;  Albert   Sidney   Johnston;  Erasmus   P.    Keyes,   a, 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  105 

lieutenant,  lately  graduated;  and  Robert  Anderson,  then  Lieu- 
tenant of  Artillery,  acting  as  Inspector-General,  by  whom  the  volun- 
teers were  mustered  into  the  service. 

Of  more  immediate  importance  to  Captain  Lincoln  were  two 
men  in  the  volunteer  service,  both  residents  of  Springfield;  Major 
John  T.  Stuart,  an  educated  Kentuckian  and  an  able  lawyer,  who 
first  met  Lincoln  at  Beardstown  at  the  time  of  the  mustering  in ; 
and  John  Calhoun,  of  a  prominent  Massachusetts  family  of 
Scotch  descent,  said  to  be  related  to  the  eminent  Carolina 
statesman. 

Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  34. 

A  Romantic  but  Doubtful  Statement 

In  the  memoirs  of  Jefferson  Davis  by  his  wife,  it  is  stated 
that  when  this  volunteer  force  was  called  out  by  Governor 
Reynolds,  General  Winfield  Scott  was  in  command  at  Fort  Snell- 
ing,  and  dispatched  thence  to  the  seat  of  war  two  lieutenants  to 
muster  in  the  Illinois  Volunteers. 

One  of  these  lieutenants  was  said  to  be  a  "very  fascinating 
young  man  of  easy  manners  and  affable  disposition  ;"  while  "the 
other  was  equally  pleasant  and  extremely  modest;"  it  is  further 
stated  that  "  a  tall,  homely  young  man,  dressed  in  a  suit  of  blue 
jeans,"  presented  himself  to  the  lieutenants  as  the  captain  of  a 
company  of  volunteers,  and  was  with  the  others  duly  sworn  in; 
and  that  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  administered  to  the  "young 
man  in  jeans,"  by  the  "fascinating"  young  lieutenant  first  named. 

This  "fascinating"  young  officer  was  Jefferson  Davis,  who 
was  nearly  a  year  the  senior  of  Lincoln;  his  "extremely  modest" 
colleague  was  Robert  Anderson,  who  at  the  beginning  of  the  War 
of  Secession  was  in  command  at  Fort  Sumter ;  and  the  tall,  homely 
young  captain  in  "blue  jeans"  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 

There  may  be  a  grain  of  truth  in  this  romantic  statement, 
but  it  is  doubtful.  At  the  time  Lincoln  was  elected  captain,  and 
mustered  into  service,  Scott  was  not  at  Fort  Snelling ;  he  was  in 
the  East,  and  did  not  reach  Chicago  until  July  8.  Lieut.  Jefferson 
Davis  did  not,  at  that  time,  come  from  Fort  Snelling  ;  he  had  for 
a  considerable  time  been  with  Col,  Zachary  Taylor  at  Fort  Craw- 
ford (Prairie  du  Chien). 

Lincoln  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,     Collections  of  the    State  Historical  Society  of  Wisconsin, 
Vol.  XIV,  page  123. 


io6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

Romantic  Story  Officially  Denied 

A  story  to  the  effect  that  Lincoln  was  mustered  into  service  by 
Jefferson  Davis  has  for  a  long  time  been  current,  but  the  strictest 
search  in  the  records  fails  to  confirm  it.  We  are  indebted  to  General 
R.  C.  Drum,  Adjutant-General  of  the  Army,  for  an  interesting  letter 
giving  all  the  known  facts  in  relation  to  this  story.  General  Drum 
says: 

"The  company  of  the  Fourth  Regiment  Illinois  Mounted  Vol- 
unteers, commanded  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  was,  with  others,  called  out  by 
Governor  Reynolds,  and  was  organized  at  Richland,  Sangamon 
County,  Illinois,  April  21,  1832.  The  muster-in  roll  is  not  on  file, 
but  the  records  show  that  the  company  was  mustered  out  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Fox  River,  May  27,  1832,  by  Nathaniel  Buckmaster, 
Brigade-Major  to  General  Samuel  Whitesides's  Illinois  Volunteers. 
On  the  muster-roll  of  Captain  Elijah  Iles's  company,  Illinois 
Mounted  Volunteers,  A.  Lincoln ....  appears  as  a  private  from 
May  27,  1832,  to  June  16,  1832,  when  the  company  w^as  mustered 
out  of  service  by  Lieutenant  Robert  Anderson .  .  .  .who  in  April, 
1 86 1,  was  in  command  of  Fort  Sumter.  There  is  no  evidence  to 
show  that  it  was  mustered  in  by  Lieutenant  Jefferson  Davis.  Mr. 
Davis's  company  (B,  First  United  States  Infantry)  w^as  stationed  at 
Fort  Crawford,  Wisconsin,  during  the  months  of  January  and 
February,  1832,  and  he  is  borne  on  the  rolls  as  'absent  on  detached 
service  at  the  Dubuque  mines  by  order  of  Colonel  Morgan. '  From 
March  26  to  August  18,  1832,  the  muster  rolls  of  Davis's  company 
report  him  as  absent  on  furlough." 

Abrahatn  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  96.     (Foot-note.) 

Returning  with  "Quips  and  Quirks"  from  the  War 

It  was  on  the  i6th  of  June,  a  month  before  the  slaughter 
of  the    Bad  Axe,    that  the   battalion  to  which  Lincoln   belonged 

was  at  last   mustered    out,    at    Whitewater,    Wisconsin 

The  men  started  home  the  next  day  in  high  spirits,  like  school- 
boys for  their  holidays.  Lincoln  had  need,  like  Horatio,  of  his 
good  spirits,  for  they  were  his  only  outfit  for  the  long  journey 
to.  New  Salem,  he  and  his  messmate  Harrison  having  had  their 
horses  stolen  the  day  before  by  some  patriot  over-anxious  to 
reach  home.     But,   as  Harrison  says : 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  107 

"I  laughed  at  our  fate,  and  he  joked  at  it,  and  we  all  started 
off  merrily.  The  generous  men  of  our  company  walked  and  rode  by 
turns  with  us,  and  we  fared  about  equal  with  the  rest.  But  for  this 
generosity  our  legs  would  have  had  to  do  the  better  work;  for  in 
that  day  this  dreary  route  furnished  no  horses  to  buy  or  to  steal ; 
and,  whether  on  horse  or  afoot,  we  always  had  company,  for  many 
of  the  horses '  backs  were  too  sore  for  riding.  " 

It  is  not  hard  to  imagine  with  what  quips  and  quirks  of  native 
fancy  Lincoln  and  his  friends  beguiled  the  way  through  forest  and 
prairie.  With  youth,  good  health,  and  a  clear  conscience,  and  even 
then  the  dawning  of  a  young  and  undefiled  ambition  in  his  heart, 
nothing  was  wanting  to  give  zest  and  spice  to  this  long,  sociable 
walk  of  a  hundred  leagues 

Lincoln  and  Harrison  could  not  have  been  altogether  penniless, 
for  at  Peoria  they  bought  a  canoe  and  paddled  down  to  Pekin. 
Here  the  ingenious  Lincoln  employed  his  hereditary  talent  for 
carpentry  by  making  an  oar  for  the  frail  vessel  while  Harrison  was 
providing  the  commissary  stores.     The  latter  goes  on  to  say : 

"The  river,  being  very  low,  was  without  current,  so  that  we 
had  to  pull  hard  to  make  half  the  speed  of  legs  on  land;  in  fact, 
we  let  her  float  all  night,  and  on  the  next  morning  always  found  the 
objects  still  visible  that  were  beside  us  the  previous  evening.  The 
water  was  remarkably  clear  for  this  river  of  plants,  and  the  fish 
appeared  to  be  sporting  with  us  as  we  moved  over  or  near  them. 
On  the  next  day  after  we  left  Pekin  we  overhauled  a  raft  of  saw- 
logs,  with  two  men  afloat  on  it  to  urge  it  on  with  poles  and  to  guide 
it  in  the  channel.  We  immediately  pulled  up  to  them  and  went  on 
the  raft,  where  we  were  made  welcome  by  various  demonstrations, 
especially  by  an  invitation  to  a  feast  on  fish,  corn-bread,  eggs,  butter 
and  coffee,  just  prepared  for  our  benefit.  Of  these  good  things  we 
ate  almost  immoderately,  for  it  was  the  only  warm  meal  we  had 
made  for  several  days.  While  preparing  it,  and  after  dinner, 
Lincoln  entertained  them,  and  they  entertained  us  for  a  couple 
of  hours   very  amusingly."      .... 

The  returning  warriors  dropped  down  the  river  from  Pekin  to 
Havana; /i^'. '"-.There  they  sold  their  boat, — no  difficult  task,  for  a 
canoe  was  a  staple  article  in  any  river-town, — and  again  set  out, 


io8  THE  STORY  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  old  way,  over  the  sand-ridges,  for  Petersburg.  "As  we  drew 
near  home  the  impulse  became  stronger  and  urged  us  on  amaz- 
ingly. The  long  strides  of  Lincoln,  often  slipping  back  in  the 
loose  sand,  six  inches  every  step,  were  just  right  for  me;  and  he 
was  greatly  diverted  when  he  noticed  me  behind  him  stepping 
along  in  his  tracks  to  keep  from  slipping." 

Thus  the  two  comrades  came  back  from  their  soldierings  to 
their  humble  homes,  from  which  Lincoln  was  soon  to  start  on  the 
way  marked  out  for  him  by  Providence,  with  strides  which  no 
comrade,  with  whatever  good  will,  might  hope  to  follow. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  96. 

Humorous  Reference  to  His  Record  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 

When  a  member  of  Congress,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  very  amusing 
campaign  speech,  in  which,  alluding  to  the  custom  of  exaggerating' 
the  military  service  of  candidates,  and  ridiculing  the  extravagant 
claims  to  heroism  set  up  for  General  Lewis  Cass,  then  a  candidate 
for  the  Presidency  against  General  Zachary  Taylor,  he  referred 
with  great  good  humor  to  his  own  services  in  the  Black  Hawk 
War  in  the  following  terms: 

"  By  the  way,  Mr,  Speaker,  did  you  know  I  am  a  military  hero? 
Yes,  sir;  in  the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk  War  I  fought,  bled  and — 
came  away.  Speaking  of  General  Cass's  career  reminds  me  of  my 
own.  I  was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as  near  it  as 
Cass  was  to  Hull's  surrender ;  and,  like  him,  I  saw  the  place  very 
soon  afterwards.  It  is  quite  certain  I  did  not  'break  my  sword,' 
for  I  had  none  to  break;  but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on  one 
occasion.  If  Cass  broke  his  sword,  the  idea  is  he  broke  it  in 
desperation.  I  bent  my  musket  by  accident.  If  General  Cass 
went  in  advance  of  me  in  picking  whortleberries,  I  guess  I 
surpassed  him  in  charges  upon  the  wild  onions.  If  he  saw  any 
live,  fighting  Indians,  it  was  more  than  I  did ;  but  I  had  a  good  i 
many  bloody  struggles  with  mosquitoes,  and,  although  I  never 
fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I  was  often  very 
hungry.  Mr.  Speaker,  if  I  should  ever  conclude  to  doff  whatever 
our  Democratic  friends  may  suppose  there  is  of  black-cockade 
federalism  about  me,  and  thereupon  they  shall  take  me  up  as 
their  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  I  protest  they  shall  not  make 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  log 

fun   of   me,    as   they   have   of   General   Cass,    by   attempting   to 
write  me  into  a  mihtary  hero." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  37. 

The  Only  Time  Lincoln  Was  Ever  Defeated  on  a  Direct  Vote 

of  the  People 

Lincoln  must  have  reached  home  about  August  ist,  for  the 
election  was  to  occur  in  the  second  week  of  that  month,  and  this 
left  him  but  ten  days  in  which  to  push  his  claims  for  popular 
indorsement.  His  friends,  however,  had  been  doing  manful  duty 
for  him  during  his  three  months '  absence,  and  he  lost  nothing 
in  public  estimation  by  his  prompt  enlistment  to  defend  he 
frontier.  Successive  announcements  in  the  Journal  had  by  this 
time  swelled  the  list  of  candidates  to  thirteen. 

But  Sangamon  County  was  entitled  to  only  four  representa- 
tives, and  when  the  returns  came  in  Lincoln  was  among  those 
defeated.  Nevertheless,  he  made  a  very  respectable  showing  in 
the  race.  The  list  of  successful  .  .  .  aspirants  and  their  votes 
was  as  follows : 

E.  D.    Taylor 1127 

John   T.    Stuart 991 

Achilles   Morris 945 

Peter  Cartwright  (the  famous  backwoods  preacher)  ...   815 

Lender  the  plurality  rule,  these  four  had  been  elected 

The  returns  show  that  the  total  vote  of  the  county  was  about 
2168.  Comparing  this  with  the  vote  (657)  cast  for  Lincoln,  we 
see  that  he  received  nearly  one-third  of  the  total  county  vote, 
notwithstanding  his  absence  from  the  canvass,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  his  acquaintanceship  was  limited  to  the  neighborhood 
of  New  Salem,  notwithstanding  the  sharp  competition.  Indeed, 
his  talent  and  fitness  for  active  practical  politics  were  demonstrated 
beyond  question  by  the  result  in  his  home  precinct  of  New  Salem, 
which,  though  he  ran  as  a  Whig,  gave  2.77  votes  for  him  and  only 
3  against  him.  Three  months  later  it  gave  185  for  the  Jackson  and 
only  70  for  the  Clay  electors,  proving  Lincoln's  personal  popularity. 
He  remembered  for  the  remainder  of  his  life  with  great  pride  that 
this  was  the  only  time  he  was  ever  beaten  on  a  direct  vote  of  the 
people. 


110  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

The  result  of  the  election  brought  him  to  one  of  the  serious 
crises  of  his  life,  which  he  forcibly  stated  in  after  years  in  the 
following  written  words: 

"He  (Lincoln  wrote  of  himself  in  the  third  person)  was  now 
without  means  and  out  of  business,  but  anxious  to  remain  with  his 
friends,  who  had  treated  him  with  so  much  generosity,  especially 
as  he  had  nothing  elsewhere  to  go  to.  He  studied  what  he  should 
do;  thought  of  learning  the  blacksmith  trade,  thought  of  trying 
to  study  law,  rather  thought  he  could  not  succeed  at  that  without 
a  better  education." 

A  Short  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  John  G.  Nicolay,  page  35. 

Lincoln     and     Smoot — Left-Handed     Compliments    but     Right-Handed 

Friendship 

One  day  in  1832,  while  Lincoln  w^as  clerking  for  Offutt,  a 
stranger  came  into  the  store,  and  soon  disclosed  the  fact  that  his 
name  was  Smoot.  Abe  was  behind  the  counter  at  the  moment, 
but,  hearing  the  name,  he  sprang  over  and  introduced  himself.  Abe 
had  often  heard  of  Smoot  and  Smoot  had  often  heard  of  Abe.      .    .    . 

"Smoot,"  said  Lincoln,  after  a  steady  survey  of  his  person, 
"  I  am  very  much  disappointed  in  you ;  I  expected  to  see  an  old 
'Probst'  of  a  fellow."  ("Probst,"  it  appears,  was  the  most  hideous 
specimen  of  humanity  in  all  that  country.) 

"Yes,"  replied  Smoot,  "and  I  am  equally  disappointed,  for 
I  expected  to  see  a  good-looking  man  when  I  saw  you. " 

A  few  neat  compliments  like  the  foregoing  laid  the  foundation 
of  a  lasting  intimacy  between  the  two  men. 

The  Ltfe  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  is7. 

A  Wrecked  Store,  a  Plucky  Investment  and  the  Firm  of 

Berry  &  Lincoln 

After  Lincoln  had  terminated  his  novitiate  in  mercantile  life 
with  the  downfall  of  Offutt,  his  next  mercantile  .  .  .  .experi- 
ence was  achieved  in  a  mode  peculiar  to  the  business  methods  .  .  . 
of  the  frontier. 

It  occurred  thus :  Reuben  Radford  brought  a  stock  of  goods  to 
New  Salem,  and  opened  a  store.  He  was  duly  warned  against  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  "  Clary's  Grove  Boys,  "  but  incorrectly  reasoned 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  m 

that  he  could  keep  them  under  control  if  he  limited  their  allowance 
of  drinks  to  two  each.  It  so  happened  that,  upon  the  occasion  of 
their  first  visit  to  New  Salem  after  his  settlement  there,  he  was  on 
a  visit  in  the  country  three  miles  distant,  and  his  young  brother  was 
in  charge. 

After  the  crowd  drank  twice  around,  the  young  clerk  informed 
them  that  he  had  reached  the  limit  of  his  orders,  and  that  the  faucet 
to  the  whiskey  barrel  was  under  an  embargo  till  their  next  visit. 
That  was,  to  them,  a  strange  condition  of  affairs,  and  not  in  accord- 
ance with  the  theory  of  government  ....  for  which  their  fore- 
fathers "  fit,  "  and  they  sought  in  vain  to  impress  their- view  of  the 
case  upon  the  warden  of  the  indispensable  spirits.  But  the  youth 
was  rigid  and  declined  to  yield,  whereupon  the  crowd  whipped  out 
their  horse-pistols  and  made  targets  of  the  alluring  whiskey  bottles 
which  adorned  the  shelves,  and  in  a  few  minutes  spread  ruin 
throughout  the  store.  "The  boys"  then  made  good  use  of  the 
exhilaration  contained  in  an  unlimited  supply  of  whiskey,  and 
riot  reigned  supreme  in  that  neighborhood  until  the  "wee  sma' 
hours"  of  the  next  morning. 

Shortly  before  day,  Radford's  peaceful  sleep  was  disturbed  by 
the  bacchanalian  yelling  of  the  rowdies  en  route  for  their  homes,  and 
fearing  danger  at  his  store,  he  mounted  his  horse  and  rode  post-haste 
toward  the  little  hamlet. 

Billy  Greene,  then  still  a  youth,  was  on  his  pony  going  early  to 
mill.  Seeing  Radford  dash  past  him,  his  horse  reeking  with  sweat, 
he  followed  at  a  breakneck  pace  to  learn  the  cause  of  such  excite- 
ment. Radford  reached  his  store,  and,  hastily  alighting,  stood  on 
the  platform  and  gazed  in  at  the  open  door  with  dismay  upon 
the  broken  bottles  and  other  debris  of  the  saturnalian  debauch. 
Greene  rode  up  to  the  open  window  just  as  Radford  in  desper- 
ation exclaimed: 

"I'll  sell  out  this  whole  'shebang'  at  the  first  offer  I  get." 
Greene,  at  a  venture,  exclaimed, 
.       "I  offer  $400." 

"Done,"  said  Radford,  "the  concern's  yours." 

"  But  I  have  no  money, "  said  Greene. 

"Never  mind  the  money,"  said  the  disgusted  merchant. 
"  Come  right  in  and  give  me  your  note  at  six  months,  "  which  Greene 
promptly  and  recklessly  did, 


112  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Radford  bestrode  his  steed  and  left  young  Greene  "  monarch  of 
all  he  surveyed."  The  store  was  directly  opposite  the  hotel 
(so-called)  where  Lincoln  at  that  time  abode.  Just  at  this  moment 
Abe  appeared  at  the  wash-stand  out  of  doors.  Seeing  the  youthful 
speculator  and  divining  his  "embarrassment  of  riches,"  Lincoln 
said : 

"  Hold  on,  Bill,  till  I  get  a  bite  of  breakfast,  and  we'll  take  an 
inventory  and  see  what  you've  got.  " 

"I  don't  want  any  more  inventory, "  was  the  reply.  "The 
'Clary  Grovers'  have  done  all  the  inventoryin'  /  want." 

But  after  breakfast  Lincoln  and  Greene  went  through  the  stock 
and  found  that  it  was  worth  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  at 
least.  Lincoln  was  out  of  a  job  just  then,  and  one  William  Berry 
was  also  out  of  employment,  but  the  possessor,  just  at  that 
juncture,  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  in  cash,  and  a  good  horse, 
saddle,  and  bridle. 

In  less  than  an  hour  from  the  time  of  the  inventory  the  follow- 
ing trade  was  made :  Berry  Sz  Lincoln  formed  a  partnership  and 
bought  out  Greene ;  Berry  paid  him  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
in  cash,  and  gave  him  the  horse,  saddle,  and  bridle,  estimated  at 
one  hundred  dollars,  assumed  payment  of  his  debt  to  Radford,  and 
Greene  was  to  have  the  store  receipts  for  that  day.  The  new  firm 
then  went  into  possession  and  took  in  fifteen  dollars  and  a 
Spanish  shilling;  and  young  Greene,  highly  elated  by  his  first 
business  venture,  rode  home  that  night  with  two  hundred  and 
sixty-five  dollars  and  twelve  and  one-half  cents,  and  a  horse,  saddle 
and  bridle,  as  the  result  of  the  investment  of  a  boy's  pluck  and 
enterprise. 

The  firm  of  Berry  &  Lincoln  next  absorbed  the  stock  and  busi- 
ness of  the  moribund  firm  of  James  and  Rowan  Herndon.  The 
new  enterprise  was,  however,  greatly  handicapped,  first,  by  lack  of 
capital,  and  secondly,  by  the  devotion  of  the  senior  partner  to  the 
whiskey  jug,  and  of  the  junior  partner  to  "star-eyed  science." 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  88.  j 

Becomes  Possessor  of  "Blackstone"  by  Accident 

His  ambition  to  be  a  lawyer  was  stimulated  by  a  curious  inci- 
dent that  occurred  soon  after  he  went  into  partnership  with  Berry, 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM 


"3 


He  related  it  himself  to  Mr.  A.  J.  Conant,  the  artist,  who  painted  his 
portrait  in  Springfield  in  i860,  in  these  words : 

"One  day  a  man  who  was  migrating  to  the  West  drove  up  in 
front  of  my  store  with  a  wagon  which  contained  his  family  and 
household  plunder.     He  asked  me  if  I  would  buy  an  old  barrel  for 
which  he  had  no  room  in  his  wagon,  and  which  contained  nothing 
of  special  value.     I  did  not  want  it,  but  to  oblige  him  I  bought  it, 
and  paid  him, 
I  think,  half  a 
dollar    for     it. 
Without    f  u  r  - 
ther    examina- 
tion   I    put   it 
away    in    the 
store   and   for- 
got   all    about 
it.     Some  time 
after,   in  over- 
hauling things, 
I    came    upon 
the  barrel,  and 
emptying  it  on 
the  floor  to  see 
what     it     con- 
tained, I  found 
at  the  bottom 
of  the  rubbish 
a  complete  edi- 
tion of   Black- 
stone's  'Com- 
mentaries. '     I  began  to  read  those  famous  works,  and  I  had  plenty 
of  time ;  for  during  the  long  summer  days,  when  the  farmers  were 
busy  with  their  crops,  my  customers  were  few  and  far  between. 
The  more  I  read" — this  he  said  with  unusual  emphasis — "the  more 
intensely   interested    I    became.     Never    in   my   whole   life    was 
my     mind    so    thoroughly    absorbed.     I   read   until   I    devoured 
them. " 

The  True  Abrahain  Lincoln,  William  Eleroy  Curtis,  page  63. 


Devotion  of  the  junior  partner  to  "star-eyed  science.' 


114  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

His  First  Effort  at  Public  Speaking 

About  the  year  1832  or  1833,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  one  of  his  first 
efforts  at  pubHc  speaking.  A  debating  club,  of  which  James  Rut- 
ledge  was  president,  was  organized,  and  held  regular  meetings. 
As  he  arose  to  speak,  his  tall  form  towered  above  the  little 
assembly.  Both  hands  were  thrust  down  deep  in  the  pockets  of 
his  pantaloons. 

A  perceptible  smile  at  once  lit  up  the  faces  of  the  audience,  for 
all  anticipated  the  relation  of  a  humorous  story.  But  he  opened  up 
the  discussion -in  splendid  style,  to  the  infinite  astonishment  of  his 
friends."^  As  he  warmed  with  his  subject,  his  hands  would  forsake 
his  pockets  and  would  enforce  his  ideas  by  awkward  gestures,  but 
would  >ery  soon  seek  their  easy^ resting-places.  He  pursued  the 
question  with  reason  and  airgument  so  pithy  and  forcible  that  all 
were  aniazed. 

The  president,  at  his  fireside  after  the  meeting,  remarked  to  his 
wife  tl^at  there  was  more  in  Abe's  head  than  wit  and  fun;  that 
he  was  .Already  a  fine  speaker ;  that  all  he  lacked  was  culture  to 
enable  him  to  reach  the  high  destiny  which  he  knew  w^as  in 
store  for  him.  From  that  time  Mr.  Rutledge  took  a  deeper  interest 
in  him.  2=  .     '      .;- 

The  L'^:of  Abrahatn%^iMcaliu  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  121. 

^  Store  that  "Winked  out,"  Leaving  "the  National  Debt" 

Fortunately  for  Lincoln  and  for  the  world,  the  store-enterprise 
was  not  successful.  It  was  entered  into  without  sufficient  reflection, 
and  from  the  very  nature  of  things  was  destined  to  fail.  To  Berry 
the  business  was  merely  the  refuge  of  idleness.  He  spent  his  time 
in  gossip  and  drank  up  his  share  of  the  profits,  and  it  is  probable 
that  Lincoln  was  far  more  interested  in  politics  and  general  reading 
than  in  the  petty  traffic  of  his  shop.  In  the  spring  of  the  next  year, 
finding  that  their  merchandise  was  gaining  them  little  or  nothing, 
they  concluded  to  keep  a  tavern  in  addition  to  their  other  business, 
and  the  records  of  the  County  Court  of  Sangamon  County  show 
that  Berry  took  out  a  license  for  that  purpose  on  the  6th  of  March, 

1833- 

But  it  was  even  then  too  late  for  any  expedients 'to.  save  the 

moribund  partnership.     The  tavern  was  never  opened,  for  about 

this  time  Lincoln  and  Berry  were  challenged  to  sell  out  to  a  pair  of 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM 


II 


vagrant  brothers  named  Trent,  who,  as  they  had  no  idea  of  paying, 
were  wilHng  to  give  their  notes  to  any  amount.  They  soon  ran 
away,  and  Berry  expired,  extinguished  in  rum. 

Lincoln  was  thus  left  loaded  with  debts,  and  with  no  assets 
except  worthless  notes  of  Berry  and  the  Trents.  It  is  greatly  to  his 
credit  that  he  never  thought  of  doing  by  others  as  others  had  done 
by  him.  The  morality  of  the  frontier  was  deplorably  loose  in  such 
matters,  and  most  of  these  people  would  have  concluded  that  the 
failure  of  the  business  expunged  its  liabilities. 

But  Lincoln  made  no  effort  even  to  compromise  the  claims 
against  him.  He  promised  to  pay  when  he  could,  and  it  took  the 
labor  of  years  to  do  it,  but  he  paid  at  last  every  farthing  of  the  debt, 
which  seemed  to  him  and  his  friends  so  large  that  it  was  called 
among  them  "  the  national  debt.  " 

He  had  already  begun  to  read  elementary  books  of  law,  bor- 
rowed from  Major  vStuart  and  other  kindly  acquaintances.  Indeed, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  Berry  and  Lin- 
coln might  have  succeeded  better  in  bus- 
iness if  the  junior  member  of  the  firm 
had  not  spent  so  much  of  his  time  read- 
ing Blackstone  and  Chitty  in  the  shade 
of  a  great  oak  just  outside  the  door, 
while  the  senior  quietly  fuddled  himself 
within.  Eye-witnesses  still  (in  1880)  speak 
of  the  grotesque  youth,  habited  in  home- 
spun tow,  lying  on  his  back  with  his  feet 
on  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  and  poring  over 
his  book  by  the  hour,  "grinding  around 
in  the  shade, "  as  it  shifted  from  north  to 

.  P,  1  .  ,  ,  1  •  _  MAJOR  JOHN  T.   STUART 

east.      After   his   store,    to   use   his   own        „,^  «  ,  ^i-     ,  ♦ 

.  '  1-1  Who  first  encouraged  Lincoln  to 

expression,  had  "  winked  out,  "  he  applied    study  law  and  lent  him  law  books, 
himself  with  more  continuous    energy  to 

his  reading,  doing  merely  what  odd  jobs  came  to  his  hand  to  pay 
his  current  expenses,  which  were  of  course  very  slight. 

He  sometimes  helped  his  friend  ElHs  in  his  store ;  sometimes 
went  into  the  field  and  renewed  his  exploits  as  a  farm  hand,  which 
had  gained  him  traditional  fame  in  Indiana;  sometimes  employed 
his  clerkly  hand  in  straightening  up  a  neglected  ledger.  It  is 
probable  that  he  worked  for  his  board  oftener  than  for  any  other 


ii6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LtNCOLN 

compensation,  and  his  hearty  friendliness  and  vivacity,  as  well  as 
his  industry  in  the  field,  made  him  a  welcome  guest  in  any  farm- 
house in  the  county.  His  strong  arm  was  at  the  disposaJ  of  the 
poor  and  needy;  it  is  said  of  him,  with  a  graphic  variation  of  a 
well-known  text,  "that  he  visited  the  fatherless  and  the  widow 
and  chopped  their  wood." 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  iii. 

Studying  Law  on  the  Woodpile 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  Lincoln  succeeded  in  becoming 
a  prominent  lawyer  under  such  unpromising  circumstances.  Russel 
Godby,  an  old  man  who  still  survives  (1890),  tells  the  following; 

"  We  often  employed  Lincoln  to  do  farm  work  for  us.  One  day 
I  found  him  sitting  barefoot  on  the  summit  of  the  woodpile,  atten- 
tively reading  a  book.  This  was  such  an  unusual  thing  for  a  farm 
hand  to  be  doing  that  I  asked  him, 

"  'Say,  Abe,  what  are  you  doing  up  there?" 

"  'I'm  studying,'  he  answered. 

"  'Studying  what?'  I  inquired. 

"  '  Laiv,  sir, '  was  the  emphatic  response.  I  stood  awhile  look- 
ing at  him,  sitting  there  as  proud  as  Cicero.  That  was  really  too 
much  for  me. " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Paul  Selby,  page  83. 

"Chops  Up  a  House  for  *Ab'  Trent" 

One  cold  winter  day,  Lincoln  saw  a  poor  fellow  named  "  Ab" 
Trent  hard  at  work  "chopping  up  a  house,"  which  Mr.  Hill  had 
employed  him  to  convert  into  firew^ood.  Ab  was  barefoot,  and 
shivered  pitifully  while  he  worked.  Lincoln  watched  him  a  few 
moments,  and  asked  him  what  he  was  to  get  for  the  job.  Ab 
answered,  "one  dollar;"  and,  pointing  to  his  naked  and  suffering 
feet,  said  he  wished  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes. 

Lincoln  seized  the  ax,  and,  ordering  the  boy  to  comfort  him- 
self at  the  nearest  fire,  chopped  up  the  house  so  fast  that  Ab  and 
the  owner  were  both  amazed  when  they  saw  it  done. 

According  to  Mr.  Rutledge,  "  Ab  remembered  this  act  with  the 
liveliest  gratitude.  Once  he,  being  a  'cast-iron  Democrat,'  deter- 
mined to  vote  against  his  party  and  for  Mr.  Lincoln ;  but  the  friends, 
as  he  afterwards  said  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  made  him  drunk  and 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  T17 

he  voted  against  Abe.  Thus  he  did  not  even  have  an  opportunity 
to  return  the  noble  conduct  of  Mr.  Lincoln  by  thi§  small  measure 
of   thanks." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  is 2. 

Kelso  Introduces  Lincoln  to  "  Shakespeare  "  and  "  Bums  " 

There  lived  at  New  Salem  at  this  time,  and  for  some  years 
afterward,  a  festive  gentleman  named  Kelso,  a  school-teacher,  a 
merchant,  or  a  vagabond,  according  to  the  run  of  his  somewhat 
variable  "luck."  When  other  people  got  drunk  at  New  Salem,  it 
was  the  usual  custom  to  tussle  and  fight,  and  tramp  each  other's 
toes,  and  pull  each  other's  nose;  but  when  Kelso  got  drunk,  he 
astonished  the  rustic  community  with  copious  quotations  from 
Robert  Burns  and  William  Shakespeare, — authors  little  known 
among  the  literary  men  of  New  Salem. 

Besides  Shakespeare  and  Burns,  Mr.  Kelso  was  likewise  very 
fond  of  fishing,  and  could  catch  his  game  when  no  other  man  could 
"get  a  bite."  Mr.  Lincoln  hated  fishing  with  all  his  heart.  But 
it  is  the  testimony  of  the  country-side,  from  Petersburg  to  Island 
Grove,  that  Kelso  "  drew  Lincoln  after  him  by  his  talk;"  that  they 
became  exceedingly  intimate;  that  they  loitered  away  whole  days 
together,  along  the  banks  of  the  quiet  streams;  that  Lincoln 
learned  to  love  inordinately  our  "divine  William"  and  "Scotia's 
bard."      Finally  he  and  Kelso  boarded  at  the  same  place. 

Like  Offutt,  Kelso  disappeared  suddenly  from  New  Salem. 
....  Of  Kelso  a  few  faint  traces  Have  been  found  in  Missouri 
....  and  but  for  the  humble  boy  to  whom  he  was  once  a  gentle 
master,  no  human  being  would  now  bestow  a  thought  upon  his 
name.  In  short,  to  use  the  expressive  language  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself,  Kelso  literally  "  petered  out.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  144. 

Junior  Partner,  Rail-Splitter,  Farm-Hand  and  Postmaster 

Business  was  not  so  brisk  in  Berry  &  Lincoln's  store  that  the 
junior  partner  did  not  welcome  an  appointment  as  postmaster, 

which  he  received  in  May,  1833 The  duties  of  the  office 

were  not  arduous,  for  letters  were  few,  and  their  comings  far  be- 
tween. At  that  date  the  mails  were  carried  by  four-horse  post- 
coaches  from  city  to  city,  and  on  horseback  from  central  points  into 


ii8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  country  towns.       The  rates  of  postage  were  high  (from  six  to 

twenty-five  cents  for  a   "single  sheet"   letter) Though 

supposed  to  arrive  twice  a  week,  it  sometimes  happened  that  a  fort- 
night or  more  elapsed  without  any  mail.  Under  these  conditions 
the'  New  Salem  post-office  was  not  a  serious  care. 

A  large  number  of  the  patrons  of  the  office  lived  in  the  country 
— many  of  them  miles  away — but  generally  Lincoln  delivered  the 
letters  at  their  doors— [a  "rural  free  delivery"].  These  he  would 
carefully  place  in  the  crown  of  his  hat,  and  distribute  them  from 
house  to  house.  Thus  it  was  in  a  measure  true  that  he  kept  the 
New  Salem  post-office  in  his  hat. 

But  whether  the  mail  was  delivered  by  the  postmaster  himself, 
or  the  recipient  came  to  the  store  to  inquire,  "Anything  for  me?" 
it  was  the  habit  "to  stop  and  visit  awhile."  He  who  received  a 
letter  read  it  and  told  the  contents ;  if  he  had  a  newspaper,  usually 
the  postmaster  could  tell  him  in  advance  what  it  contained,  for  one 
of  the  perquisites  of  the  early  postmaster  was  the  privilege  of  reading 
all  printed  matter  before  delivering  it.  Every  day,  then,  Lincoln's 
acquaintance  in  New  Salem,  through  his  position  as  postmaster,  be- 
came more  intimate As  the  position  of  postmaster  brought 

in  only  a  small  revenue,  Lincoln  was  forced  to  take  any  odd  work 
he  could  get.  He  helped  in  other  stores  of  the  town,  split  rails, 
and  looked  after  the  mill;  but  all  this  yielded  only  a  scant  and 
uncertain  support. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  I7S. 

"Anything  for  Me?" 

One  Elmore  Johnson,  an  ignorant  but  ostentatious,  proud  man, 
used  to  go  to  Lincoln's  post-office  every  day — sometimes  three  or 
four  times  a  day,  if  in  town, — and  inquire, 

"Anything  for  me?" 

This  bored  Lincoln,  yet  it  amused  him.  He  fixed  a  plan, 
wrote  a  letter  to  Johnson,  as  coming  from  a  negress  in  Kentucky, 
saying  a  good  man}^  things  about  "possums,"  dances,  "cornshuck- 
ings, "  etc.,  winding  up  with: 

"  Johns ',  come  and  see  me  again  and  old  master  won't  kick  you 
out  of  the  kitchen  any  more!" 

Elmore  took  it  out  and  opened  it,  but  couldn't  read  a  word; 
he  went  away  and  got  some  friends  to  read  it ;  they  read  it  correctly 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM 


T19 


but  he  thought  they  were  fooHng  him.     He  went  to  others  with  the 
same  result.     At  last  he  said  he  would  get  L^uco/n  to  read  it.      .    .    . 
It  was  almost  too  much  for  Lincoln,  but  he  read  it  through. 
The  man  never  asked  again,  "Anything  here  for  me?" 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  148. 

A.  Lincoln,  Deputy-Surveyor 

When  in  the  fall  he  had  an  opportunity  to  learn  surveying,  he 
accepted  it  eagerly.  .  . 
As  the  county  of  San- 
gamon was  large,  and 
eagerly  sought  by  im- 
migrants, the  county 
surveyor  in  1833,  one 
John  Calhoun,  needed 
deputies.    .    .    . 

With  Lincoln,  Cal- 
houn had  little,  if  any, 
personal  acquaintance, 
for  they  lived  twenty 
miles  apart.  .  .  Cal- 
houn had  heard  of  him 
(Lincoln)  as  an  honest, 
intelligent,  and  trust- 
worthy young  man.  One 
day  he  sent  word  to 
Lincoln  by  Pollard  Sim- 
mons, who  lived  in  the 
New  Salem  neighbor- 
hood, that  he  had  de- 
cided to  appoint  him 
deputy  surveyor  if  he 
would  accept  the  posi- 
tion. ...  It  was  a  surprise  to  Lincoln.  Calhoun  was  a  "Jack- 
son man;"  he  was  for  Clay.  What  did  he  know  about  surveying, 
and  why  should  a  Democratic  official  offer  him  a  position  of  any 
kind?  He  immediately  went  to  Springfield,  and  had  a  talk  with 
Calhoun.  He  would  not  accept  the  appointment,  he  said,  unless 
he  had  the  assurance  that  it  involved  no  political  obligation.     This 


ANDREW  JACKSON 


.§ 


Cl20) 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM      -  121 

assurance  was  given.  The  only  difficulty  then  in  the  way  was 
the  fact  that  he  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  surveying.  But 
Calhoun,  of  course,  understood  this,  and  agreed  that  he  should 
have  time  to  learn. 

With  the  promptness  of  action  with  which  he  always  undertook 
anything  he  had  to  do,  he  procured  Flint  and  Gibson's  treatise  on 
surveying,  and  sought  Mentor  Graham  for  help.  At  the  sacrifice 
of  some  time,  the  schoolmaster  aided  him  to  a  partial  mastery  of 
the  intricate  subject.  Lincoln  worked  literally  day  and  night, 
sitting  up  night  after  night  until  the  crowing  of  the  cock  warned 
him  of  the  approach  of  dawn.  So  hard  did  he  study  that  his  friends 
were  greatly  concerned  at  his  haggard  face.  But  in  six  weeks  he  had 
mastered  all  the  books  within  reach  relating  to  the  subject.  .  .  . 
Reporting  to  Calhoun  for  duty  (greatly  to  the  amazement  of  that 
gentleman),  he  was  at  once  assigned  to  the  territory  in  the  north- 
west part  of  the  county 

Lincoln's  surveys  had  the  extraordinary  merit  of  being  correct. 
Frequently  he  was  called  upon  to  find  the  corner  in  contro- 
versy. His  verdict  was  invariably  the  end  of  the  dispute,  so 
general  was  the  confidence  in  his  honesty  and  skill.  Lincoln's  pay 
as  a  surveyor  was  three  dollars  a  day,  more  than  he  had  ever  before 

earned Good  board  and  lodging  could  be  obtained  for 

one  dollar  a  week.  But  even  three  dollars  a  day  did  not  enable 
him  to  meet  all  his  financial  obligations.  The  heavy  debts  of  the 
store  hung  over  him.  He  was  obliged  to  help  his  father's  family 
in  Coles  County.  The  long  distances  he  had  to  travel  in  his  new 
employment  had  made  it  necessary  to  buy  a  horse,  and  for  it  he  had 
gone  into  debt 

With  a  single  exception,  Lincoln's  creditors  seem  to  have  been 
lenient.  One  of  the  notes  given  by  him  came  into  the  hands  of  a 
Mr.  Van  Bergen,  who,  when  it  fell  due,  brought  suit.  The  amount 
of  the  judgment  was  more  than  Lincoln  could  pay,  and  his  personal 
effects  were  levied  upon.  These  consisted  of  his  horse,  saddle  and 
bridle,  and  surveying  instruments.  James  Short,  a  well-to-do 
farmer,  without  advising  Lincoln  of  his  plans,  attended  the  sale, 
bought  in  the  horse  and  surveying  instruments  for  one  hundred 
and  twenty  dollars,  and  turned  them  over  to  their  former  owner. 
By  this  kind  act  of  "Uncle  Jimmy,"  the  young  surveyor  was 
enabled  to  continue  his  business. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  i8;. 


12  2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

A  Picnic  in  the  Neighborhood  While  Lincoln  Was  Surveying  There 

According  to  tradition,  when  he  first  took  up  the  [surveying] 
business  he  was  too  poor  to  buy  a  chain,  and,  instead,  used  a  long, 
straight  grape-vine.  Probably  this  is  a  myth,  though  surveyors 
who  had  experience  in  the  early  days  say  it  may  be  true.  The 
chains  commonly  used  at  that  time  were  made  of  iron.  Constant 
use  wore  away  and  weakened  the  links,  and  it  was  no  unusual  thing 
for  a  chain  to  lengthen  six  inches  after  a  year's  use.  "And  a  good 
grape-vine,"  to  use  the  words  of  a  veteran  surveyor,"  would  give 
quite  as  satisfactory  results  as  one  of  those  old-fashioned  chains. " 

•       •        ■        • 

Lincoln  frequently  was  obliged  to  be  away  for  three  or  four 
weeks  at  a  time,  laying  new  towns  or  locating  new  roads. 

Every  such  trip  added  to  his  political  capital.  Such  was  his 
reputation  throughout  the  country  that  when  he  got  a  job  ... 
there  was  a  picnic  and  jolly  time  in  the  neighborhood.  Men  and 
boys  gathered  from  far  and  near,  ready  to  carry  the  chain,  drive 
stakes,  and  blaze  trees,  if  they  could  only  hear  Lincoln's  odd  stories 
and  jokes.  The  fun  was  interspersed  with  foot  races  and  wrestling 
matches.  To  this  day  (1895)  the  old  settlers  in  many  a  place  in 
Central  Illinois  repeat  the  incidents  of  Lincoln's  sojourns  in  their 
neighborhood  while  surveying  their  town. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  pages  loo  and  132. 

The   Clary's   Grove   Champion   Becomes   a   Staunch   Friend 

But,  after  all,  Lincoln  had  no  friend  more  intimate  than  Jack 
Armstrong,  and  none  that  valued  him  more  highly.  Until  he  finally 
left  New  Salem  for  Springfield,  he  "rusticated"  occasionally  at 
Jack's  hospitable  cabin,  situated  "four  miles  in  the  country,"  as 
the  polished  metropolitans  of  New  Salem  would  say. 

Jack's  wife,  Hannah, .  .  .  liked  Abe,  and  enjoyed  his  visits 
not  less  than  Jack  did. 

"  Abe  would  come  out  to  our  house,  "  she  says,  "  drink  milk,  eat 
mush,  corn-bread  and  butter,  bring  the  children  candy,  and  rock 
the  cradle  while  I  got  him  something  to  eat.        ...     I  foxed  his 

pants;  and  made  his  shirts He  has  gone  with  us  to 

father's ;  he  would  tell  stories,  joke  people,  girls  and  boys,  at 
parties.     He  would  riurse  babies — do  anything  to  accommodate 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM 


123 


anybody.      ...  I  had  no  books  about  my  house ;  loaned  him  none. 
We  didn't  think  about  books  and  papers.     We  worked;  had  to 


»E%--^-.~ 


"Abe  would  come  to  our  house,  tell  stories  and  joke  people.' 


live.     Lincoln  has  stayed  at  our  house  two  or  three  weeks  at  a  time.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  150. 


Where  His  Blindness  of  Heart  Made  Trouble 

When  a  surveyor,  Mr.  Lincoln  first  platted  the  town  of  Peters- 
burg, Illinois.  Some  twenty  or  thirty  years  afterward  the  property- 
owners  along  one  of  the  outlying  streets  had  trouble  in  fixing  their 
boundaries.     They  consulted  the  official  plat  and  got  no  relief, 


12 A  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

A  committee  was  sent  to  Springfield  to  consult  the  distinguished 
surveyor,  but  he  failed  to  recall  anything  that  would  give  them  aid, 
and  coidd  only  refer  them  to  the  record.  The  dispute,  therefore, 
went  into  the  courts. 

While  the  trial  was  pending,  an  old  Irishman  named  McGuire, 
who  had  worked  for  some  farmer  during  the  summer,  returned  to 
town  for  the  winter.  The  case  being  mentioned  in  his  presence,  he 
promptly  said: 

"I  can  tell  you  all  about  it.  I  helped  carry  the  chain  when  Abe 
Lincoln  laid  out  this  town.  Over  there  where  they  are  quarreling 
about  the  lines,  when  he  was  locating  the  street,  he  straightened  up 
from  his  instrument  and  said: 

"  Tf  I  run  that  street  right  through,  it  will  cut  three  or  four  feet 
off  the  end  of  Blank's  house.  It's  all  he's  got  in  the  world  and  he 
never  could  get  another.  I  reckon  it  won't  hurt  anything  out  here 
if  I  skew  the  line  a  little  and  miss  him.'  " 

The  line  was  "skewed," — hence  the  trouble,  and  more  testi- 
mony furnished  as  to  Lincoln's  abounding  kindness  of  heart  that 
would  not  willingly  harm  any  human  being. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  139. 

His  First  Real  Stump  Speech 

Here  is  a  delightful  description  of  the  appearance  of  the  candi- 
date and  his  style  of  address  at  the  period : 

"He  wore  a  mixed  jean  coat,  claw-hammer  style,  short  in  the 
sleeves  and  bob-tail — in  fact  it  was  so  short  in  the  tail  he  could  not 
sit  on  it — flax  and  tow  linen  pantaloons,  and  a  straw  hat.  I  think  he 
wore  a  vest,  but  do  not  remember  how  it  looked.  He  wore  pot- 
metal  boots. 

"His  maiden  effort  on  the  stump  was  a  speech  on  the  occasion 
of  a  public  sale  at  Pappville,  a  village  eleven  miles  off  Springfield. 
After  the  sale  was  over  and  speech-making  had  begun,  a  fight — a 
"general  fight,"  as  one  of  the  bystanders  relates — ensued,  and 
Lincoln,  noticing  one  of  his  friends  about  to  succumb  to  the  attack 
of  an  infuriated  rufifian,  interposed  to  prevent  it.  He  did  so  most 
effectually.  Hastily  descending  from  the  rude  platform,  he  edged 
his  way  through  the  crowd,  and  seizing  the  bully  by  the  neck  and 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  125 

the  seat  of  his  trousers,  threw  him  by  means  of  his  strength  and  long 
arms,  as  one  witness  stoutly  insists,  'twelve feet  away.'  Returning 
to  the  stand,  and  throwing  aside  his  hat,  he  inaugurated  his  cam- 
paign with  the  following  brief,  but  juicy  declaration : 


<(  (- 


'Fellow  Citizens,  I  presume  3^ou  all  know  who  I  am. 
I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  have  been  solicited  by  many 
friends  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature.  My  politics  are 
'short  and  sweet'  like  the  old  woman's  dance.  I  am  in  favor  of  a 
national  bank.  I  am  in  favor  of  the  internal  improvement  system, 
and  a  high  protective  tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments  and  political 
principles.  If  elected,  I  shall  be  thankful ;  if  not  it  will  be  all  the 
same.'  " 

Some  Old  Love  Stories,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  page  2g. 


In  the  Field  and  on  the  Stump — The  Campaign    of    1834 

Mr.  Rowan  Herndon  tells  of  the  following  incidents :  "Lincoln 
came  to  my  house,  near  Island  Grove,  during  harvest.  There  were 
some  thirty  men  in  the  field.  He  got  his  dinner,  and  went  out  in 
the  field  where  the  men  were  at  work.  I  gave  him  an  introduction, 
and  the  boys  said  that  they  could  not  vote  for  a  man  unless  he  could 
take  a  hand. 

'Well,  boys',  said  he,  'if  that  is  all,  I  am  sure  of  your  votes. ' 
He  took  hold  of  the  cradle,  and  led  way  all  the  round  with  perfect 
ease.  The  boys  were  satisfied,  and  I  don't  think  he  lost  a  vote  in 
the  crowd. 

"The  next  day  there  w^as  speaking  at  Berlin.  He  went  from 
my  house  with  Dr.  Barnett,  the  man  that  had  asked  me  who  this 
man  Lincoln  was.  I  told  him  that  he  was  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature.     He  laughed  and  said : 

"  'Can't  the  party  raise  no  better  material  than  that?' 

"I  said,  'Go  to-morrow,  and  hear  all  before  you  pronounce 
judgment. ' 

"When  he  came  back  I  said,  'Doctor,  what  do  you  say 
now?' 

"  'Why.  sir, '  said  he,  'he  is  a  perfect  take  in.  He  knows  more 
than  all  of  them  put  together. '  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  156. 


126  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Love  and  Ambition 

The  honest  and  upright  ambition  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to  make 
a  man  of  himself  needed  no  spurring.  There  were  within  him 
springs  of  life  and  thought  as  yet  unopened  and  of  whose  existence 
he  was  hitherto  ignorant.  These  were  now  to  be  discovered  to  him, 
and  a  new  and  strong  incentive  to  exertion  was  to  add  its  power  to 
the  other  forces  which  were  urging  him  forward. 

The  third  child  of  Mr.  James  Rutledge,  Lincoln's  devoted 
friend  and  admirer,  was  a  girl  of  high  principle  and  uncommon 
beauty.  In  all  the  country  around  there  was  no  maiden  to  be  com- 
pared with  fair  Ann  Rutledge.  Her  mental  accomplishments 
were  only  such  as  could  then  be  obtained  in  Illinios  by  the  daughter 
of  a  country  merchant  of  intelligence  and  property,  but  they  were 
sufficient.  She  could  not  fail  to  have  admirers ;  and  when,  in  the 
second  year  of  Lincoln's  New  Salem  life,  he  came  to  board  for  a 
while  with  her  father,  she  was  already  promised  in  marriage  to  his 
friend  McNeil,  a  young  and  thriving  trader  and  farmer  of  New  Salem. 

There  came  to  her  soon  afterwards  a  strange,  romantic  history. 
Her  betrothed  revealed  to  her  the  fact  that  his  name  was  not  Mc- 
Neil but  McNamar,  and  that  he  had  so  concealed  his  identity  in 
coming  West  that  he  might  build  a  fortune  unknown  to  his  family 
and  then  return  to  care  for  his  father  in  his  old  age.  He  was  now 
closing  up  his  business,  turning  his  property  into  money,  and  would 
go  to  New  York  and  perform  his  purpose  there,  and  come  back  to 
wed  the  girl  who  had  given  him  her  heart. 

She  heard  and  she  believed  him,  and  he  went  away.  He  wrote 
to  her  of  his  father's  sickness  and  death.  Then  other  letters  came, 
at  longer  and  longer  intervals,  always  promising  to  return  and  hold- 
ing her  to  her  engagement,  until  at  last  their  coming  ceased  entirely. 
It  was  a  cruel,  a  terrible  thing  to  fall  upon  a  girl  of  nineteen.  The 
one  bitterer  drop  was  added  to  her  cup  of  trouble  when  she  found 
that,  during  all  that  time,  she  had  been  winning  the  heart  of  a 
man  whose  faith  could  not  be  broken  and  whose  integrity  and 
manly  worth  all  other  men  acknowledged 

Ann  was  as  true  as  she  was  beautiful,  and  she  at  last  was  com- 
pelled to  tell  her  urgent  suitor  frankly  what  bond  it  was  that  bade 
her  not  to  love  him.  She  could  no  longer  love  a  man  who  had  broken 
his  word.  .  .  but  she  was  slow  to  admit  her  right  to  take  another 


5/A*  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  127 

in  his  place.  And  yet  she  had  already  taken  him  in,  and  Lincoln 
knew  it,  and  he  gave  to  her  all  the  unmeasured  strength  of  his 
first,  whole-hearted  love. 

It  was  a  loyal  and  manly  thing  to  do.  No  other  thing  of  which 
he  had  shown  himself  capable  told  half  so  much  for  the  growth  of 
his  inner  life  or  promised  half  so  well. 

Lincoln  had  something  to  live  for.  .  .  There  was  no  need  for  any 
urgent  friend  to  prompt  his  political  ambition  now.  He  was  thirst- 
ing for  such  honors  as  would  mark  him  as  a  man  fitted  to  court  and 
win  Ann  Rutledge.  He  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for 
election  to  the  State  Legislature,  issued  a  printed  address  to  the 
people  of  the  county,  and  made  a  thorough  stumping  tour  from 
neighborhood  to  neighborhood.  He  spoke  as  he  had  never  before 
spoken,  and  was  triumphantly  elected,  although  there  were  other 
strong  candidates  in  the  field. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  09. 

Smoot's  Responsibility 

The  proper  sense  of  personal  dignity  forbade  him  to  go  to  the 
Capitol  at  Vandalia  in  the  shabby  clothing  which  was  good 
enough  for  his  daily  round  of  life  and  work  in  New  Salem.    . 

Among  his  older  acquaintances  was  a  man  named  Smoot,  as 
dry  a  joker  as  himself,  but  better  supplied  with  ready  money.  To 
him  Lincoln  went  one  day,  in  company  with  another  friend,  Hugh 
Armstrong. 

"Smoot,  did  you  vote  for  me?" 

"I  did  that  very  thing." 

"Well,  that  makes  you  responsible.  You  must  lend  me  the 
money  to  buy  suitable  clothing,  for  I  want  to  make  a  decent  appear- 
ance in  the  Legislature." 

"How  much  do  you  want?" 

"About  two  hundred  dollars,  I  reckon." 

The  honor  of  Sangamon  County,  and  of  New  Salem  in  particular, 
was  at  stake,  and  the  new  representative  received  his  two  hundred 
dollars  on  the  spot. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  guess  whose  eyes  were  among  the  first  to 
discover  how  great  a  difference  good  clothing  could  make  in  the 
outer  man  of  Ann  Rutledge's  tall  lover. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  th»  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  102. 


128  THE  STORY  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Law  Student  and  Representative 

The  best  thing  which  Lincoln  did  in  the  canvass  of  1834  was  not 
winning  votes;  it  was  coming  to  a  determination  to  read  law,  not 
for  pleasure,  but  as  a  business.  In  his  autobiographical  notes  he 
says : 

"During  the  canvass,  in  a  private  conversation.  Major  John  T. 
Stuart  (one  of  his  fellow  candidates)  encouraged  Abraham  to  study 
law.  After  the  election  he  borrowed  books  of  Stuart,  took  them 
home  with  him  and  w^ent  at  it  in  good  earnest.  He  never  studied 
with  anybody." 

He  seems  to  have  thrown  himself  into  the  work  with  an  almost 
impatient  ardor.  As  he  tramped  back  and  forth  from  Springfield, 
twenty  miles  away,  to  get  his  law-books,  he  read  sometimes  forty 
pages  or  more  on  the  way.  Often  he  was  seen  wandering  at  ran- 
dom across  the  fields,  repeating  alound  the  points  in  his  last  reading. 

The  rule  he  gave  twenty  years  later  to  a  young  man  who  wanted 
to  know  how  to  become  a  lawyer,  was  the  one  he  practised : 

"Get  books  and  read  and  study  them  carefully.  Begin  with 
Blackstone's  'Commentaries,'  and  after  reading  carefully  through, 
say,  twice,  take  up  Chitty's  'Pleadings,'  Greenleaf's  'Evidence,'  and 
Story's  'Equity,'  in  succession.  Work,  work,  work,  is  the  main 
thing." 

Having  secured  a  book  of  legal  forms,  he  was  soon  able  to  write 
deeds,   contracts,  and  all  sorts  of  legal  instruments;  and  he  was 
'  frequently  called  upon  by  his  neighbors  to  perform  services  of  this 
kind. 

"In  1834,"  says  Daniel  Green  Burner,  Berry  &  Lincoln's  clerk, 
"My  father,  Isaac  Burner,  sold  out  to  Henry  Onstott,  and  he  wanted 
a  deed  written.  I  knew  how  handy  Lincoln  was  that  way,  and 
suggested  that  we  get  him.     We  found  him  sitting  on  a  stump. 

"  '  All  right,'  said  he,  when  informed  what  we  wanted.  'If  you 
will  bring  me  a  pen  and  ink  and  a  piece  of  paper  I  will  write  it  here.' 
I  brought  him  these  articles,  and,  picking  up  a  shingle  and  putting 
it  on  his  knee  for  a  desk,  he  wrote  out  the  deed." 

As  there  was  no  practising  lawyer  nearer  than  Springfield, 
Lincoln  was  often  employed  to  act  the  part  of  advocate  before  the 
village  squire,  at  that  time  Bowling  Green.  He  realized  that  this 
experience  was  valuable,  and  never,  so  far  as  known,  demanded  or 
accepted  a  fee  for  his  services  in  these  petty  cases. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  129 

The  session  of  the  ninth  Assembly  began  December  i,  1834,  and 
Lincoln  went  to  the  capital,  then  Vandalia,  seventy-five  miles  south- 
east of  New  Salem,  on  the  Kaskaskia  River,  in  time  for  the  opening. 
When  Lincoln  first  went  to  Vandalia  it  was  a  town  of  eight 
hundred  inhabitants.      ... 

The  Assembly  which  he  entered  was  composed  of  eighty -one 
members — twenty-six  senators  and  fifty-five  representatives.  As 
a  rule  these  men  were  of  Kentucky,  Tennessee  or  Virginia  origin, 
with  here  and  there  a  Frenchman. 

The  ninth  Assembly  gathered  in  a  more  hopeful  and  ambitious 
mood  than  any  of  its  predecessors.  Illinois  was  feeling  well.  The 
State  was  free  from  debt.  The  Black  Hawk  War  had  stimulated 
the  people  greatly,  for  it  had  brought  a  large  amount  of  money  into 
circulation.  In  fact,  the  greater  portion  of  the  eight  to  ten  million 
dollars  the  war  had  cost,  had  been  circulated  among  the  Illinois 
volunteers.  Immigration,  too,  was  increasing  at  a  bewildering  rate. 
In  the  Northeast,  Chicago  had  begun  to  rise. 

To  meet  the  rising  tide  of  prosperity  the  Legislature  of  1834  felt 
that  they  must  devise  some  worthy  scheme,  so  they  chartered  a  new 
State  bank.  .  .  .  But  even  more  important  to  the  State  than 
banks  was  a  highway.  For  thirteen  years  plans  of  the  Illinois 
and  Michigan  canal  had  been  constantly  before  the  Assembly.  .  '  . 
Now,  however,  the  Assembly,  flushed  by  the  first  thrill  of  the  coming 
"boom,"  decided  to  authorize  a  loan  of  a  half  million  on  the  credit 
of  the  State. 

Lincoln  favored  both  these  measures.  .  .  .  He  was 
placed  on  the  committee  of  public  accounts  and  expenditures,  and 
attended  meetings  with  great  fidelity.  .  .  .  But,  neither  as 
a  speaker  nor  as  an  auditor  did  he  make  any  especial  impression  on 
the  body. 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  197. 

Ann  Rutledge — "Loved  and  Lost" 

It  is  not  known  precisely  when  Ann  Rutledge  told  her  suitor 
that  her  heart  was  his,  but  early  in  1835  it  was  publicly  known  that 
they  were  solemnly  betrothed.  Even  then  the  scrupulous  maiden 
waited  for  the  return  of  the  absent  McNamar,  that  she  might  be 
formally  released  from  the  obligation  to  him  which  he  had  so  reck- 


130 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


lessly  forfeited.  Her  friends  argued  with  her  that  she  was  carrying 
her  scruples  too  far,  and  at  last,  as  neither  man  nor  letter  came,  she 
permitted  it  to  be  imderstood  that  she  would  marry  Abraham 
Lincoln  as  soon  as  his  legal  studies  should  be  completed. 

That  was  a  glorious  summer  for  him ;  the  brightest,  sweetest, 
hopefullest  he  yet  had  known.     It  was  also  the  fairest  time  he  was 


GRAVE   OF  LINCOLN'S  "LOVED  AND  LOST  " 
"  I  can  never  be  reconciled  to  have  the  snow,  rain  and  storms  beat  upon  her  grave." 

ever  to  see ;  for  even  now,  as  the  golden  days  came  and  went,  they 
brought  an  increasing  shadow^  on  their  wings.  It  was  a  shadow  that 
was  not  to  pass  away.  Little  by  little  came  indications  that  the 
health  of  Ann  Rutledge  had  suffered  under  the  prolonged  strain  to 
which  she  had  been  subjected.  Her  sensitive  nature  had  been 
strung  to  too  high  a  tension  and  the  chords  of  her  life  were  beginning 
to  give  way. 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  131 

There  were  those  of  her  friends  who  said  that  she  died  of  a 
broken  heart,  but  the  doctors  called  it  "brain  fever." 

On  the  25th  of  August,  1835,  just  before  the  summer  died,  she 
passed  away  from  earth.  But  she  never  faded  from  the  heart  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  .  .  In  her  early  grave  was  buried  the  best 
hope  he  ever  knew%  and  the  shadow  of  that  great  darkness  was 
never  entirely  lifted   from  him. 

A  few  days  before  Ann's  death  a  message  from  her  brought 
her  betrothed  to  her  bedside,  and  they  were  left  alone.  No  one  ever 
knew  what  passed  between  them  in  the  endless  moments  of  that  last 
sad  farewell;  but  Lincoln  left  the  house  with  inexpressible  agony 
written  upon  his  face.  He  had  been  to  that  hour  a  man  of  mar- 
velous poise  and  self-control,  but  the  pain  he  now  struggled  with 
grew  deeper  and  more  deep,  until,  when  they  came  and  told  him  she 
was  dead,  his  heart  and  will,  and  even  his  brain  itself,  gave  way. 
He  was  utterly  without  help  or  the  knowledge  of  possible  help  in 
this  world  or  beyond  it.  He  was  frantic  for  a  time,  seeming  even 
to  lose  the  sense  of  his  own  identity,  and  all  New  Salem  said  that  he 
was  insane.     He  piteously  moaned  and  raved: 

"I  never  can  be  reconciled  to  have  the  snow,  rain,  and  storms 
beat  upon  her  grave." 

His  best  friends  seemed  to  have  lost  their  influence  over  him, 
all  but  one ;  for  Bowling  Green .  .  managed  to  entice  the 
poor  fellow  to  his  own  home  a  short  distance  from  the  village,  there 
to  keep  watch  and  ward  over  him  until  the  fury  of  his  sorrow  should 
wear  away.  There  were  well-grounded  fears  lest  he  might  do  him- 
self some  injury,  and  the  watch  was  vigilantly  kept. 

In  a  few  weeks  reason  again  obtained  the  mastery,  and  it  was 
safe  to  let  him  return  to  his  studies  and  his  work.  He  could  indeed 
work  again,  and  he  could  once  more  study  law,  for  there  was  a  kind 
of  relief. in  steady  occupation  and  absorbing  toil,  but  he  was  not, 
could  not  ever  be,  the  same  man. 

Lincoln  had  been  fond  of  poetry  from  boyhood,  and  had  grad- 
ually made  himself  familiar  with  large  parts  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
and  the  works  of  other  great  writers.  He  now  discovered  in  a 
strange  collection  of  verses,  the  one  poem  which  seemed  best  to 
express  the  morbid,  troubled,  sore  condition  of  his  mind, 
the  lines  by  William  Knox,  beginning : 

"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 

Abraham  Lincoln.  The  True  Story  of  a  Great  Lije,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  :o7. 


132  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"Oh,  Why  Should  the  Spirit  of  Mortal  Be  Proud?" 

With  all  his  love  of  fun  and  frolic,  with  all  his  wit  and  humor, 
with  all  his  laughter  and  anecdotes,  Lincoln,  from  his  youth,  was  a 
person  of  deep  feeling,  and  there  was  always  mingled  with  his  mirth 
sadness  and  melancholy.  He  always  associated  with  the  memory 
of  Ann  Rutledge  the  plaintive  poem  which  in  his  hours  of  melancholy 
he  so  often  repeated,  and  whose  familiar  first  stanzas  are  as  follows: 

"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? 
Like  a  swift  fleeting  meteor,  a  fast  flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

The  leaves  of  the  oak  and  the  willow  shall  fade, 
Be  scattered  around,  and  together  be  laid. 
And  the  young  and  the  old,  and  the  low  and  the  high 
Shall  moulder  to  dust  and  together  shall  lie.  " 

Lincoln  loved  at  twilight,  or  when  in  the  country,  or  in  solitude, 
or  when  with  some  confidential  friend,  to  repeat  this  poem.  I  think 
he  exaggerated  its  merits,  and  I  attribute  his  great  love  of  the  poem 
to  its  association  with  Ann  Rutledge.  Several  years  passed  after 
the  sad  death  of  Miss  Rutledge  before  he  married.  It  is  not  im- 
possible that  his  devotion  to  her  memory  may  have  been,  in  part, 
the  cause  of  so  long  a  delay. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  43. 

"Ev'ry  Time  He'd  Talk  'bout  Her  He  Cried  Dreadful" 

"Abe's"  nephew — or  one  of  them — relates  a  story  in  connection 
w^th  Lincoln's  first  love  (Ann  Rutledge) .  .  .  Said  he  one  day, 
in  telling  his  story : 

"Us  children,  w'en  we  heerd  Uncle  'Abe'  wuz  a-goin'  to  be 
married,  axed  Gran'ma  ef  Uncle  'Abe'  never  hed  hed  a  gal  afore, 
an'  she  says,  sez  she, 

"  'Well,  Abe  wuz  never  a  han'  nohow  to  run  'round  visitin' 
much,  or  go  with  the  gals,  neither,  but  he  did  fall  in  love  with  a  Ann 
Rutledge,  who  lived  out  near  Springfield,  an'  after  she  died  he'd 
come  home,  an'  ev'ry  time  he'd  talk  'bout  her  he  cried  dreadful.  He 
never  could  talk  of  her  nohow  'thout  he'd  jes'  cry  an'  cry,  like  a 
young  feller.' 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  133 

"Onct  he  tol'  Gran'ma  they  wuz  goin'  ter  be  hitched,  they 
havin'  promised  each  other,  an'  thet  is  all  we  ever  heerd  'bout  it." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  300. 

Candidate  Lincoln  "Shows  His  Hand" 

When  he  was  again  a  candidate  for  the  same  office,  there  were 
more  political  issues  to  be  met,  and  Lincoln  met  them  w4th  char- 
acteristic honesty  and  boldness.  During  the  campaign  he  issued 
the  following  letter: 

"New  Salem,  June  13,  1836. 
'  'To  the  Editor  of  The  Journal: 

"In  your  paper  of  last  Saturday 
I  see  a  communication  over  the  signature  of  'Many  Voters'  in  which 
the  candidates  who  are  announced  in  the  Journal  are  called  upon  to 
'show  their  hands.' 

"Agreed.     Here's  mine: 

"I  go  in  for  all  sharing  the  privileges  of  the  government  who 
assist  in  bearing  its  burdens.  Consequently,  I  go  for  admitting 
all  whites  to  the  right  of  suffrage  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms  (by 
no  means  excluding  females), 

"If  elected,  I  shall  consider  the  whole  people  of  Sangamon  my 
constituents,  as  well  those  that  oppose  as  those  that  support  me. 

"While  acting  as  their  Representative,  I  shall  be  governed  by 
their  will  on  all  subjects  upon  which  I  have  the  means  of  knowing 
what  their  will  is;  and  upon  all  others  I  shall  do  what  my  own 
judgment  teaches  me  will  best  advance  their  interests.  Whether 
elected  or  not,  I  go  for  distributing  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of 
public  lands  to  the  several  States  to  enable  our  State,  in  common 
with  others,  to  dig  canals  and  construct  railroads  without  borrowing 
money  and  paying  interest  on  it. 

"If  alive  on  the  first  Monday  in  November,  I  shall  vote  for 
Hugh  L.  White,  for  President. 

"Very  respectfully, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

This  was  just  the  sort  of  letter  to  win  the  support  of  the  plain- 
spoken  voters  of  Sangamon  County.  Lincoln  not  only  received 
more  votes  than  any  other  candidate  on  the  legislative  ticket,  but 
the  County,  which  had  always  been  Democratic,  was  turned  Whig. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  467. 


134  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Forquer's  Lightning-rod 

In  1836,  Lincoln  was  again  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature,  and 
in  this  canvass  he  greatly  distingmshed  himself.  On  one  occasion 
there  was  to  be  a  public  discussion  among  the  opposing  candidates, 
held  at  the  Court  House  at  Springfield,  and  Lincoln,  among  others, 
was  advertised  to  speak.  This  was  his  first  appearance  "on  the 
stump"  at  the  county  seat.  There  lived  at  this  time  in  the  most 
pretentious  house  in  the  town  a  prominent  citizen  with  the  name  of 
George  Forquer.  He  had  been  long  in  public  life,  had  been  a  lead- 
ing Whig,  the  party  to  which  Lincoln  belonged,  but  had  lately  gone 
over  to  the  Democrats,  and  received  from  the  Democratic  admin- 
istration an  appointment  to  the  lucrative  post  of  Register  of  the 
Land  Office  at  Springfield.  Upon  his  handsome  new  house  he  had 
lately  placed  a  lightning-rod,  the  first  one  ever  put  up  in  Sangamon 
County.  As  Lincoln  was  riding  into  town  with  his  friends  they 
passed  the  fine  house  of  Forquer,  and  observed  the  novelty  of  the 
lightning-rod,  discussing  the  manner  in  which  it  protected  the  house 
from  being  struck  by  lightning. 

There  was  a  very  large  meeting,  and  there  was  a  great  curiosity 
to  hear  the  orator  from  New  Salem,  who,  as  the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys" 
insisted,  could  make  a  better  stump  speech  than  any  man  at  the 
county  seat.      ..."  '    . 

There  were  seven  Whig  and  seven  Democratic  candidates  for 
the  lower  branch  of  the  Legislature,  and  after  several  had  spoken, 
it  fell  to  Lincoln  to  close  the  discussion.  He  did  it  with  great  ability. 
Forquer,  though  not  a  candidate,  then  asked  to  be  heard  for  the 
Democrats  in  reply  to  Lincoln.  He  was  a  good  speaker,  and  well 
known  throughout  the  county.  His  special  task  that  day  was  to 
attack  and  ridicule  the  young  countryman  from  New  Salem.  Turn- 
ing to  Lincoln,  who  stood  within  a  few  feet  of  him,  he  said : 

"This  yotmg  man  must  be  taken  down,  and  I  am  truly  sorry 
that  the  task  devolves  upon  me." 

He  then  proceeded,  in  a  very  overbearing  way,  and  with  an 
assumption  of  great  superiority,  to  attack  Lincoln  and  his  speech. 
He  was  fluent  and  ready  with  the  rough  sarcasm  of  the  stump, 
and  he  went  on  to  ridicule  the  person,  dress,  and  arguments  of  Lin- 
coln with  so  much  success  that  Lincoln's  friends  feared  that  he  would 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  135 

be  embarrassed  and  overthrown.  The  "Clary's  Grove  Boys,"  who 
were  present  to  cheer,  applaud,  and  back  Lincoln,  could  scarcely 
be  restrained  from  getting  up  a  fight  in  behalf  of  their  favorite. 
They  and  all  his  friends  felt  that  the  attack  was  ungenerous  and 
unmanly. 

Lincoln,  however,  stood  calm,  but  his  flashing  eyes  and  pale 
cheek  indicated  his  indignation.  As  soon  as  Forquer  had  closed,  he 
took  the  stand  and  first  answered  his  opponent's  arguments,  fully 
and  triumphantly.  So  impressive  were  his  words  and  manner  that 
a  hearer  believes  that  he  can  remember  to  this  day  (1880)  and  repeat 
some  of  the  expressions.     Among  other  things  he  said : 

"The  gentleman  commenced  his  speech  by  saying  that  'this 
young  man,'  alluding  to  me,  must  be  taken  down.  I  am  not  so 
young  in  years  as  I  am  in  the  tricks  and  trades  of  a  politician,  but," 
said  he,  pointing  to  Forquer,  "live  long  or  die  young,  I  would 
rather  die  now,  than,  like  the  gentleman,  change  my  politics,  and 
with  the  change  receive  an  office  worth  three  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  and  then,"  continued  he,  "then  feel  obliged  to  erect  a  light- 
ning-rod over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty  conscience  from  an 
offended  God." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln   Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  46. 


Talked  to  His  Hostess  while  His  Rival  Milked  the  Cow 

In  one  of  those  campaigns,  Lincoln  and  his  Democratic  oppo- 
nent, L,  D.  Ewing,  contended  in  company  for  the  ballot  of  a  promi- 
nent farmer  in  Sangamon  County,  He  was  not  at  home,  so  they 
both  sought  the  influence  of  the  farmer's  wife,  ...  At  milking 
time  they  both  started  out  to  help  her  with  pail  and  stool.  Arrived 
at  the  barn  door,  Mr,  Ewing  took  the  pail  and  insisted  on  doing  the 
milking  himself,  naturally  thinking  that  this  would  be  the  master- 
stroke. But  as  he  received  no  reply  to  the  bits  of  talk  he  was  able 
to  make  at  intervals,  he  looked  up  to  see  the  hostess  and  his  rival 
leaning  on  the  bars  at  ease,  in  amicable  discussion.  By  the  time  his 
task  was  done,  Lincoln  had  captivated  the  voter's  better  half,  and  all 
that  his  rival  gained  for  his  exertion  was  her  thanks  for  the  chance 
to  "have  such  a  pleasant  talk  with  Mr.  Lincoln!" 

l,itfColnics,  Henry  Llewllyn  Williams,  page  19. 


136  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Taylor's  "Bloated  Aristocrat" 

Among  the  Democratic  orators  who  canvassed  Sangamon 
County  in  1836,  was  Colonel  Dick  Taylor.  He  was  a  .  .  very 
pompous  little  gentleman,  who  rode  about  in  his  carriage,  neatly 
dressed,  with  very  comspicuous  ruffles  to  his  shirt,  with  patent 
leather  boots,  kid  gloves,  some  diamonds  and  gold  studs  in  his  linen, 
an  immense  watch-chain  with  many  seals,  charms,  and  pendants — 
altogether  in  striking  contrast  with  the  plainly  clad  people  whom 
he  addressed.  ,  .  Vain,  and  affecting  to  be,  withal,  an  extreme 
Democrat,  he  had  much  to  say  of  "the  bone  and  sinew,"  "the  hard- 
handed  yeomanry  of  the  land."  He  was  very  sarcastic  on  the  Whig 
aristocracy,  the  "rag  barons,"  and  the  "silk  stocking  gentry." 
Lincoln,  the  candidate  of  this  so-called  aristocracy,  was  dressed  in 
Kentucky  jeans,  coarse  boots,  checkered  shirt  buttoned  round  his 
neck  without  a  necktie,  an  old  slouched  hat,  and  certainly  the  last 
thing  he  or  his  appearance  could  suggest  would  be  that  of  an}i;hing 
aristocratic. 

On  one  occasion  when  Lincoln  was  present,  Taylor,  in  the  midst 
of  a  violent  harangue  against  the  Whig  aristocrats,  made  a  gesture 
so  forcible  that  he  tore  the  buttons  oft"  his  vest,  and  the  whole 
magnificence  of  his  ruffles,  gold  watch  chain,  seals,  etc.,  burst  forth, 
fully  exposed.  Taylor  paused  in  embarrassment.  Lincoln,  step- 
ping to  the  front,  turning  to  Taylor,  pointed  to  his  ruffles  and 
exclaimed : 

"Behold  the  hard-fisted  Democrat!  Look,  gentlemen,  at  this 
specimen  of  bone  and  sinew,  and  here,  gentlemen," said  he,  laying  his 
great,  bony  hand,  bronzed  with  work,  on  his  own  heart,  "here  at 
your  service,"  bowing,  "here  is  your  aristocrat!  here  is  one  of  your 
'silk  stocking  gentry'  I"  Spreading  out  his  hands,  "here  is  your  '  rag 
baron'  with  his  lily-white  hands.  Yes,  I  suppose,"  continued  he, 
"I,  according  to  my  friend  Taylor,  am  'a  bloated  aristocrat.'  " 

The  contrast  was  irresistibly  ludicrous,  and  the  crowd  burst  into 
shouts  of  laughter  and  uproar.  In  this  campaign  the  reputation 
of  Lincoln  as  a  speaker  was  established,  and  ever  afterwards  he  was 
recognized  as  one  of  the  great  orators  of  the  State. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  49, 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  137 


The  "  Long  Nine,"  the  Removal  of  the  Capital,  and  the 
"  Lincoln-Stone  Protest" 

The  Sangamon  delegation  to  the  Legislature,  there  being  two 
Senators  and  seven  members  of  the  House, — nine  in  all,  and  each 
over  six  feet  high — was  known  as  the 
"Long  Nine,"  and  Lincoln,  being  tallest 
of  all,  was  called  the  "Sangamon  Chief." 
Among  his  colleagues  from  Sangamon 
were  Edward  D.  Baker, .  .  .  .and  Ninian 
W.  Edwards,  son  of  Governor  Ninian 
Edwards.  Among  his  fellow -members  of 
the  House  w^ere  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas, 
John  J.  Hardin,  James  Shields, .  .  .  and 
others    who    became    prominent    in    the 

State  and  nation.     In  this  canvass  Lincoln         njnian  w.  edwards 
had  received,  as  in  1834,  the  highest  vote    one  of  the  "  Long  Nine  -  and  hus- 
given  to  any  man  on  the  ticket.    .    .    .  ^^'"^  "^  ^*'y  '^"'^'^'^  ^'^^^'■ 

For  the  immediate  constituents  of  Sangamon  County,  Lincoln 
and  the  "Long  Nine"  succeeded  in  getting  a  law  passed  removing 
the  [State]  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield.  A  fellow-member, 
one  of  the  "  Nine,  "  speaking  of  this  measure,  says: 

"When  our  bill,  to  all  appearance,  was  dead,  and  beyond 
resuscitation ....  and  our  friends  could  see  no  hope,  Lincoln 
never  for  a  moment  despaired,  but,  collecting  his  colleagues  in  his 
room  for  consultation,  his  practical  common  sense,  his  thorough 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  made  him  an  over-match  for  his  com- 
peers, and  for  any  man  I  have  ever  known. " 

At  this  session,  on  the  3d  of  March,  1837,  he  began  that  series 
of  anti-slavery  measures  which  were  ended  and  consummated  in  the 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation  and  the  Amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution abolishing  and  prohibiting  slavery  forever  throughout  the 
Republic.  At  this  time  it  required  courage  to  speak  or  write 
against  slavery.  Resolutions  of  a  violent  pro-slavery  character,  and 
denunciatory  of  "  abolitionists  "  and  all  efforts  to  abolish  and  restrict 
slavery,  were  carried  through  the  Legislature  by  overwhelming 
majorities.  The  people  of  Illinois,  at  that  time,  were  made  up 
largely  of  emigrants  from  the  slave  States,  and  were  filled  with  the 
prejudices  of  that  section,  and  the  feeling  against  anti-slavery  men 


138  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

was  violent,  and  almost  universal.  There  then  existed  in  Illinois  a 
body  of  laws  against  negroes,  called  "The  Black  Code,"  of  most 
revolting  cruelty  and  severity. 

Under  these  circumstances  Lincoln  jeopardized  his  popularity 
by  drawing  up  and  signing  a  solemn  protest  against  these  resolu- 
tions. But  among  all  the  members  of  the  house,  over  one  hundred 
in  number,  he  found  only  one  who  had  the  courage  to  join  him. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Dan  Stone  were  the  only  ones  who  had 
the  nerve  to  express  and  record  their  protest  against  the  injustice  of 
slavery.  This  protest,  qualified  as  it  was,  to  meet,  if  possible,  the 
temper  of  the  times,  declared  that  slavery  is  founded  on  injustice 
and  bad  policy. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  50. 

The  "  Prime  Mover  "  of  the  Capital  of  Illinois 

No  event  prior  to  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  ever 
happened  in  Illinois  which  created  so  much  excitement  as  the 
removal  of  the  State  Capital.  The  first  measure  was  a  joint  resolu- 
tion to  relocate  by  a  joint  convention  of  the  two  houses  on  a  day 
named.  That  day  was  a  red-letter  day  in  the  history  of  Vandalia, 
for  all  the  politicians  in  the  State  were  there,  each  one  advocating 
his  favorite  location. 

There  were  a  dozen  competing  places,  six  actively  so,  and  the 
rest  hoping  that  an  emergency  would  arise  that  would  bring  one  of 
them  to  the  front.  The  leading  places  were  Springfield,  Jackson- 
ville, Vandalia,  Peoria,  Alton  and  Illiopolis  (the  center  of  the  State). 
When  the  first  ballot  was  taken,  intense  excitement  prevailed. 
Lincoln's  adroit  tactics  were  felt  and  acknowledged  throughout,  and 
Springfield  received  more  votes  than  any  two  of  its  competitors 
combined,  on  the  first  ballot,  and  continued  to  grow  with  every 
ballot,  securing  the  coveted  prize  on  the  fourth. 

An  appropriation  of  $50,000  was  made  towards  providing  a 
capital  building,  and  Springfield  was  required  to  obligate  itself  to 
pay  $50,000  toward  the  same  object.  It  took  herculean  efforts  to 
raise  this  amount,  and  Douglas  proposed  a  measure  to  release  the 
city  from  its  obligation,  but  Lincoln  opposed  it.     Said  he: 

"  We  have  the  benefit ;  let  us  stand  by  our  obligation  like  men. ' ' 

The  sum  was  divided  into  three  instalments ;  the  first  two  were 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM 


139 


raised,  but  they  had  to  borrow  the  last  instalment  from  the  State 
Bank.  To  secure  this  a  joint  note  was  made,  signed  by  every 
citizen  of  the  place.    .    .    . 

This  was  Lincoln's  last  legislative  service.  During  its  existence 
he  gained  much  experience,  became  acquainted  with  the  genius  of 
Illinois  laws  and  polities,  and  the  laws  themselves,  and  the  politi- 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

THE  CAPITOL  AT  VANDALIA 

Used  as  County  Court-House  after  the  removal  of  the  State  Capital,  largely  through 
Lincoln's  influence,  to  Springfield. 

cians,  and  was  enabled  to  gauge,  to  some  extent,  his  own  merits  and 
abilities  as  a  politician  and  public  man. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  statesmanship  was  in  a  chrysalis  state.  His 
evolution  from  a  backwoods  youth  to  a  man  of  affairs  was  not  yet 
complete.  His  training  for  his  true  mission  in  life  had  just  begun. 
A  Lincoln  was  not  made  in  a  day. 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  145. 


I40  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  the  "Pettifogger" 

He  had  already  begun  to  practice  in  an  apprentice  way,  occa- 
sionally drawing  deeds  and  bills  of  sale  for  his  neighbors  and  "  petti- 
fogging" before  Justice  Bowling  Green;  and  biographers,  better 
acquainted  with  literary  values  than  with  law,  have  seized  upon  the 
fact  that  he  was  not  paid  for  this  work  to  illustrate  his  generosity 
and  helpfulness.  One  of  the  recent  histories  states  that,  "  poor  aa 
he  was,  he  never  accepted  a  fee  for  such  services,  because  he  felt  that 
he  was  fully  paid  by  the  experience.  " 

Probably  it  more  than  paid  him,  but  in  view  of  the  Illinois  law 
which  imposes  a  heavy  penalty  on  imlicensed  persons  who  accept 
compensation  for  attorney  work,  and  in  the  light  of  similar  pro- 
visions in  the  Indiana  Revised  Statutes,  which  Lincoln  is  supposed 
to  have  memorized,  chapter,  page  and  verse,  the  attempt  to  praise 
his  forbearance  makes  a  ludicrous  virtue  of  necessity. 

Lincoln,  it  will  be  remembered,  protested  that  no  pseudo- 
partizans  of  his  should  never  make  fun  of  him  by  writing  him  into  a 
military  hero ;  but  he  could  not  protect  himself  on  every  side,  and 
his  friends,  the  eulogists,  have  certainly  done  their  best  to  make 
him  ridiculous. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevsr  Hill,  page  57. 

Settled  out  of  Court 

Squire  Masters  of  Petersburg,  Illinois,  was  once  threatened  with 
a  lawsuit  He  went  to  Springfield  and  had  a  talk  with  Lincoln 
about  the  case.  Lincoln  told  him,  as  an  old  friend,  that  if  he  could 
not  settle  the  case  he  would  undertake  to  defend  it,  but  he  urged 
his  friend  to  make  an  amicable  adjustment. 

"  What'll  you  charge,  Abe,  to  go  into  court  for  me?" 

"Well,"  Lincoln  replied,  "it  will  cost  you  ten  dollars;  but  I 
won't  charge  you  anything  if  you  can  settle  it  between  yourselves.  " 

The  other  party  heard  of  the  Squire's  visit  to  Lincoln,  and 
agreed  to  settle. 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewllyn  Williams,  page  30, 

Banquets  and  Toasts  for  Lincoln  and  the  "Long  Nine" 

The  session  ended  on  March,  6,  1837,  and  the  "Long  Nine" 
mounted  their  horses  and  started  for  home,  except  Lincoln,  who  had 
no  horse  to  mount,  and  went  by  means  of  "Shanks'  mare,"  as  he 


SIX  YEARS  AT  NEW  SALEM  141 

termed  it.  Being  long-legged  and  an  excellent  walker,  he  was 
enabled  to  pick  his  way  through  comparatively  dry  fields  and  by 
the  roadside,  thus  avoiding  the  mud  which  his  companions  must 
contend  with,  and  so  he  managed  to  keep  lip  with  them  for  the 
whole  journey,  which  consumed  four  days.  It  is  quite  probable 
that,  in  order  to  have  the  benefit  of  Lincoln's  humor,  they  suited 
their  gait  to  his,  and  it  is  manifest  to  such  as  were  familiar  with  the 
"wild  and  woolly  West, "  in  those  days,  that  the  literary  entertain- 
ment of  the  journey  was  highly  spiced,  if  not  classical.  The  poorest 
scintillation  of  wit  of  the  journey  reveals  a  border  of  sadness.  The 
future  Emancipator,  thinly  clad  for  the  season,  shivered,  as  a  cold 
northeaster  struck  him,  and  said : 

"Boys,  I'm  cold." 

"No  wonder,"  was  the  unfeeling  reply,  animadverting  on  the 
size  of  his  feet,  "there's  so  much  of  you  on  the  ground.  " 

However,  the  "Long  Nine"  were  received  with  great  eclat  at 
Springfield.  The  keys  and  freedom  of  the  little  mud -begirt  city 
were  accorded  them,  and  free  dinners  galore  were  spread.  At  one 
of  these  the  following  toast  was  proposed  in  honor  of  Mr.  Lincoln : 

"Abraham  Lincoln;  he  has  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his 
friends,  and  disappointed  the  hopes  of  his  enemies;"  and  Lincoln 
proposed  this  toast : 

"All  our  friends:  they  are  too  numerous  to  mention  now  indi- 
vidually, while  there  is  no  one  of  them  who  is  not  too  dear  to  be 
forgotten  or  neglected." 

And  Douglas,  who  was  also  there,  having  been  appointed 
Register  of  the  Land  Office,  offered  this  toast : 

"The  winter's  legislation:  may  its  results  prove  no  less 
beneficial  to  the  whole  State  than  they  have  to  our  town.  " 

But  the  novelty  wore  off  in  a  day  or  two,  and  the  usual  hum- 
drum of  existence  prevailed.  Lincoln  had  had  the  lead  in  the 
honors  accorded,  and,  although  his  name  was  as  sonorous  and  more 
applauded  than  any,  he  was  the  only  one  of  the  "  Long  Nine"  who 
had  no  local  habitation  or  home,  and  the  necessity  for  achieving 
one  pressed  remorselessly  upon  him. 

Soon  after  leaving  Springfield  at  this  time,  he  visited  Athens 
[Illinois],  where  his  colleague,  Robert  L.Wilson,  of  the  "  Long  Nine,  " 
resided,  and  that  community  extended  to  Mr.  Lincoln  the  com- 
pliment of  a  banquet,  at  which  he  was  accorded  the  toast : 


142  THE  STORY -LIFE  OR  LINCOLN 

-^^^'    ■■  ■  -■- ■■■■  *  ■ — • — -- 

"Abraham  Lincoln;  one  of  Nature's  noblemen." 
One  can  scarcely  credit  the  extreme  rusticity  which  then  pre- 
vailed. Those  extremely  raw  "toasts"  sound  very  like  the  pro- 
ceedings of  a  cross-roads  debating  club — in  fact,  Lincoln  and  his 
surroundings  smacked  of  the  Justice  of  the  Peace  order  of  law 
business,  and  the  "log-cabin  and  hard  cider"  style  of  social  life. 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page   138. 

Leaving  New  Salem 

The  time  had  come  at  last  when  he  must  leave  the  place  where 
he  had  lived  for  nearly  six  years — where  he  had  evolved  from  a  mere 
adventurer  to  a  lawyer  and  a  legislator.  He  had  served  two  terms 
in  the  Legislature,  and  had  acquired  considerable  distinction;  he 
had  seen  the  rise,  growth,  development  and  decay  of  New  Salem; 
and  he  probably  foresaw  its  speedy  downfall,  for  Petersburg  had 
been  established,  and  was  growing  at  the  expense  of  the  earlier 
settlement.   .    .    . 

And  so,  immediately  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Legislature 
in  March,  1837,  Lincoln  sold  his  compass,  chain,  marking-pins,  and 
Jacob's  staff;  packed  his  little  clothing  and  few  effects  into  his 
saddle-bags,  borrowed  a  horse  of  his  friend  Bowling  Green,  and  bade 
adieu  to  the  scene  of  so  much  of  life,  so  much  of  sorrow,  to  him.  In 
less  than  a  year  from  that  time  New  Salem  ceased  to  exist 

When  Bowling  Green  died,  Lincoln  was  invited  by  the  Masons, 
under  whose  auspices  Green  w^as  buried,  to  make  a  funeral  address, 
he  manfully  attempted  it  and  ignominiously  failed.  His  feelings 
overpowered  him  as  the  past  rose  in  his  memory,  and  the  disinter- 
ested affection  of  his  departed  friend  passed  in  review  before  him ; 
his  sobs  choked  his  utterance,  and  he  withdrew  from  the  rtiournful 
scene  to  accompany  Mrs.  Green  to  her  desolate  home. 

LitKoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  lao. 


CHAPTER  VI 

"The  Law  and  the  Lady" 

Moving  to  Springfield 

Arrived  at  Springfield  he  glanced  timidly  at  the  few  faces  he 
saw  in  the  road  (for  Springfield  contained  not  a  thousand  people)  as 
if  to  see  whether  his  reception  was  to  be  cordial  or  frigid,  but  he 
elicited  no  hint  of  what  was  thought  of  him,  if  anything  he  was 
merely  gazed  at  with  a  look  of  cold  curiosity  or  indifference,  and  his 
heart  sank  within  him  as  he  reflected  on  the  past,  and  cast  a  mental 
horoscope  of  the  future. 

His  first  stop  was  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the  public  square, 
at  a  hitching  rack,  where  he  threw  the  bridle  rein  over  a  pin,  and 
v/earily  taking  off  the  saddle  bags,  gazed  furtively  up  and  down  the 
silent  street,  and  then  entered  a  store  on  the  west  side  of  the  square, 
apparently  a  little  doubtful  of  his  reception.  But  he  was  greeted .  . 
....  heartily  by  the  proprietor  with, 

"Hello,  Abe,  just  from  Salem?" 

Lincoln — "  Howdy,  Speed!  Yes,  this  is  my  first  show -up.  " 

Speed — "  So  you  are  to  be  one  of  us? " 

Lincoln — "  I  reckon  so  if  you  will  let  me  take  pot  luck  with 
you." 

Speed — "  All  right,  Abe ;  it's  better  than  Salem.  " 

Lincoln — "  I  just  want  to  put  my  saddle  pockets  down  here 
till  I  put  up  my  beast  at  Bill  Butler's ;  then  I  want  to  see  you." 

In  five  minutes  he  returned.  "Well,  Speed,  I've  been  to 
Gorman's  and  got  a  single  bedstead ;  now  you  figure  out  what  it  wil) 
cost  for  a  tick,  blankets  and  so  forth.  " 

Speed  (after  figuring) — "  Say  seventeen  dollars  or  so.  " 

Lincoln's  countenance  fell.  "  I  had  no  idee  it  would  cost  half 
of  that,  and  I  can't  pay;  but  if  you  can  wait  on  me  till  Christmas, 
and  I  make  anything,  I'll  pay;  if  I  don't  I  can't.  " 

Speed — "  I  can  do  better  than  that ;  upstairs  I  sleep  in  a  bed 
big  enough  for  two,  and  you  just  come  and  sleep  with  me  till  you 
can  do  better. " 

(143) 


144  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  (brightening  up) — "  Good ;  where  is  it? " 
Speed — "Upstairs   behind  that   pile   of  barrels — turn   to  the 
right  when  you  get  up.  " 

Lincoln  (returning  joyously) — "Well,  Speed,  I've  moved.  " 

Life  on  the  Circuit  with  Lincoln,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  is. 

Stuart  &  Lincoln 

The  great  service  he  had  rendered  the  town  of  Springfield,  in 
carrying  through  the  law  for  removing  the  capital  to  that  place,  was 
gratefully  appreciated,  and  his  many  friends  urged  him  to  come 
there  to  live  and  practise  law.  His  old  friend,  John  T.  Stuart,  a 
lawyer  of  established  position  and  in  good  practice,  offered  him  a 
partnership.  The  offer  he  gladly  accepted,  and  in  April,  1837,  he 
removed  to,  and  made  his  home  in,  Springfield.  He  had  been 
admitted  to  the  bar  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  fall  of  1836,  but 
his  name  does  not  appear  on  the  roll  of  attorneys  until  1837.  On 
the  27th  of  April  of  that  year  he  entered  into  partnership  with 
Stuart,  under  the  name  of  Stuart  &  Lincoln,  and  this  partnership 
continued  until  the  14th  day  of  April,  1841. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  53. 

The  Affair  with  Mary  Owens 

About  a  mile  below  New  Salem,  on  the  crest  of  a  hill  over- 
looking the  broad  river  bottom,  and  on  a  farm  adjacent  to  that  of 
Bowling  Green,  lived  Bennett  Able  and  family,  who  had  emigrated 
there  from  Green  County,  Kentucky.  Mrs.  Able  had  been  an  Owens. 
She  had  incurred  the  displeasure  of  her  father  by  espousing  a  man 
not  of  his  choice ;  in  point  of  fact  she  was  superior  to  her  husband 
in  education  and  refinement.  Lincoln  was  a  welcome  visitor  at  the 
Able  household,  and  Mrs.  Able  had  often  remarked  that  she  was 
going  to  bring  about  a  match  between  him  and  her  sister  Mary,  .  . 
who  had  visited  her  in  1833,  and  remained  a  month,  leaving  an 
excellent  impression  on  the  minds  of  all,  as  to  her  person  and  char- 
acter. She  returned  again  in  November,  1836,  some  fifteen  montns 
after  the  death  of  Ann  Rutledge.  .  .  .  While  she  was  not  so 
lovely  a  character  and  did  not  possess  so  sweet  a  disposition  as  Miss 
Rutledge,  she  yet  was  a  very  handsome  and  brilliant  girl,  gifted  with 
rare  talents  that  had  been  cultivated,  and  polished  with  a  high  and 
liberal  education.   ,    ,    ,    , 


"THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY" 


145 


Mrs.  Able  was  incautious  enough  to  speak  of  her  design  so  that 
her  sister  heard  of  it ;  she  also  heard  that  Lincoln  had  said  if  Mrs. 
Abie's  sister  Mary  ever  came  to  New  Salem  again,  he  would  have  to 
marry  her. 

"We'll  see,"  soliloquized  the  Bluegrass  beauty,  "it  takes  two 
to  make  such  a  bargain.  " 

Other  beaux  (if  there  were  any)  stood  back,  and  Lincoln  had 
full  swing;  and  the  courtship,  such  as  it 
was,  progressed  at  cross-purposes.  .  . 
Despite  Lincoln's  public  career  he  was 
bashful  with  the  gentler  sex;  then  he 
was  conscious  of  the  wide  disparity  in 
culture  and  style  between  Miss  Owens 
and  himself. 

He  gave  no  credit  to  his  wealth  of 
talent  in  the  comparison ;  he  merely  took 
a  superficial  glance  at  the  accoimt  in 
which  everything  was  plus  on  the  lady's 
side,  and  minus  on  his  side.    .    .    . 

....  If  Lincoln  had  dealt  with 
this  estimable  and  refined  young  lady  in  a  spirit  of  his  usual 
candor  and  naturalness,  and  had  properly  wooed  her,  there  might 
have  been  no  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  match.  Lincoln  felt  a 
sense  of  inferiority,  for  which  the  fair  charmer  gave  no  occasion, 
and  he  only  played  at  courting,  not  pressing  his  suit  in  the 
manly  and  dignified  way  so  characteristic  of  him  in  other  roles .    .    . 

Lincoln  wrote  her  some  letters  after  he  settled  in  Springfield 
as  a  lawyer,  but  they  were  of  a  decidedly  repelling  character ;  and 
the  lady  took  him  at  his  word.  .  .  .  He  felt  beneath  her  in  a  social 
sense,  and  the  mistakes  and  misunderstandings  that  arose  from  this 
anomalous  condition  of  affairs  prevented  a  matrimonial  union 
which  would  have  been  congenial  and  prosperous,  for  Miss  Owens 
was  brilliant  and  amiable,  and  Lincoln  had  nearly  every  element  to 
make  a  good  husband.  .  .  .  However  that  may  be.  Miss  Owens, 
while  holding  Lincoln  in  high  esteem,  as  every  one  did,  felt,  as  she 
said  years  later,  that  "  he  was  deficient  in  those  minor  attentions  and 
little  civilities  which  constitute  the  chain  of  a  woman's  happiness. " 

[Note, — I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that  the  letter  to  Mr§, 


MARY  S.  OWENS 


19 


146  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Browning  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  about  this  estimable  and  refined  lady, 
should  never  have  strayed  beyond  Mrs.  Browning's  desk.  It  was 
an  unworthy  thing  for  her  to  give  it  to  Mr.  Herndon,  and  equally 
unworthy  for  him  and  Lamon  to  give  it  to  the  world.] 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  115. 

Thirty  Thousand  Dollars  Handed  to  Him  "without  a  Scratch 

of  the  Pen" 

In  1836  our  backw^oodsman,  flatboat  hand,  captain,  surveyor, 
obtained  a  license  to  practise  law,  and,  as  might  be  expected,  rose 
rapidly.  One  anecdote  will  show  the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held 
in  his  neighborhood.  A  client  came  to  him  in  a  case  relating  to  a 
certain  land  claim  and  Lincoln  said  to  him : 

"  Your  first  step  must  be  to  take  thirty  thousand  dollars  and  go 
and  make  a  legal  tender;  it,  of  course,  will  be  refused,  but  it  is  a 
necessary  step. " 

"  But,  "  said  the  man,  "  I  haven't  the  thirty  thousand  to  make 
5t  with." 

"Oh,  that's  it;  just  step  over  to  the  bank  with  me,  and  I'll 
get  it. " 

So  into  the  bank  they  went,  and  Lincoln  says  to  the  cashier: 
'We  just  want  to  take  thirty  thousand  dollars  to  make  a  legal 
tender  with;  I'll  bring  it  back  in  an  hour  or  two."  The  cashier 
handed  across  the  money  to  "Honest  Abe"  and  without  a  scratch 
of  the  pen  in  acknowledgment,  he  strode  away  with  the  money,  all 
in  the  most  sacred  simplicity,  made  the  tender,  and  brought  it  back 
with  as  much  nonchalance  as  if  he  had  been  borrowing  a  silver  spoon 
of  his  grandmother. 

Men  of  Our  Times,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  page  18. 

How  Baddeley  Was  Deceived  by  Appearances 

Shortly  after  he  became  associated  with  Stuart,  the  latter  sent 
him  to  try  a  case  in  McLean  County  for  an  Englishman  named 
Baddeley,  giving  him  a  letter  of  introduction  which  advised  the 
client  that  he  could  rely  upon  the  bearer  to  try  his  case  in  the  best 
possible  manner. 

Baddeley  inspected  his  counsel's  partner  with  amazement  and 
chagrin.     The  young  man  was  si^  feet  four,  awkward,  ungainly 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  147 


and  apparently  shy.  He  was  dressed  in  ill-fitting  homespun  clothes, 
the  trousers  a  little  too  short,  and  the  coat  a  trifle  too  large.  He 
had  the  appearance  "  of  a  rustic  on  his  first  visit  to  the  circus,"  and 
as  the  client  gazed  on  him,  his  astonishment  turned  to  indignation 
and  rage.  What  did  Stuart  mean  by  sending  a  bumpkin  of  that 
sort  to  represent  him?  It  was  preposterous,  insulting,  and  not  to  be 
endured. 

Without  attempting  to  conceal  his  disgust,  Baddeley  uncere- 
moniously dispensed  with  Lincoln's  services.  .  .  .  History  does 
not  relate  whether  the  irate  Englishman  won  or  lost  the  cause,  but 
we  know  that  he  lived  to  become  one  of  Lincoln's  most  ardent 
admirers. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  80. 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  in  Collision  Nearly  Twenty  Years  before  Their 

Great  Debates 

Mr.  Lincoln  got  his  license  as  an  attorney ....  and  com- 
menced practice  regularly  as  a  lawyer  in  the  town  of  Springfield.  .  . 
His  first  case  was  that  of  Hawthorne  vs.  Wooldridge,  dismissed  at 
the  cost  of  the  plaintiff,  for  whom  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  was  entered. 
There  were  then  on  the  list  of  attorneys  at  the  Springfield  bar  many 
names  of  subsequent  renown.  Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan  was  on  the 
bench  of  the  Circuit  Court.  .  .  Stephen  A.  Douglas  had  made  his 
appearance  as  public  prosecutor  at  the  March  term  of  1836 ;  and  at 
the  same  term  E.  D.  Baker  had  been  admitted  to  practice.  Among 
the  rest  were  John  T.  Stuart,  .  .  .George  Forquer,  Dan  Stone, 
Ninian  W.  Edwards,  John  J.  Hardin,  and  others. 

By  this  time  Mr.  Lincoln  enjoyed  considerable  local  fame  as  a 
politician,  but  none,  of  course,  as  a  lawyer.  He  therefore  needed  a 
partner,  and  got  one  in  the  person  of  John  T.  Stuart,  an  able  and 
distinguished  Whig,  who  had  relieved  his  poverty  years  before  by 
the  timely  loan  of  books  with  which  to  study  law.  .  .  .  The  con-= 
nection  promised  well  for  Lincoln,  and  no  doubt  he  did  well  during 
the  short  period  of  its  existence.  The  court-room  was  in  Hoffman's 
Row ;  and  the  office  of  Stuart  &  Lincoln  was  in  the  second  story  just 
above  the  court-room.  .  ,  .  Here  the  junior  partner,  when  dis- 
engaged from  the  cares  of  politics  and  the  Legislature,  was  to  be 
foimd  pretty  much  all  the  time  "reading,  abstracted  and  gloomy. " 

Springfield  was  a  small  village,  containing  between  one  and 


148  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

two  thousand  inhabitants.  There  were  no  pavements ;  the  street- 
crossings  were  made  of  "chunks,"  stones  and  sticks.  Lincoln 
boarded  with  Hon.  WilHam  Butler.  .  .  .  He  was  very  poor,  worth 
nothing,  and  in  debt,    .    .    .but  "Bill"  Butler  was  his  friend,  and 


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A  PAGE  FROM  CHARGE  BOOK  IN  LINCOLN'S  WRITING 

took  him  in  with  little  reference  to  board  bills  and  the  settlement 
of  accounts.    .    .    . 

In  January,  1837,  Lincoln  delivered  a  lecture  before  the  Spring- 
field Lyceum  on  the  subject  of  the  Perpetuation  of  Our  Free  Institu- 
tions. As  a  mere  declamation-,  it  is  unsurpassed  in  the  annals  of  the 
West.     .     .     .    This  lecture,  carefully  composed  by  Mr.  Lincoln  at 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  149 

■ -  —   - 

the  mature  age  of  twenty-eight,  and  after  considerable  experience  in 
the  public  service,  is  worthy  of  attentive  perusal.  ...  It  was 
thought  "able  and  eloquent,"  by  the  Young  Men's  Lyceum  of 
Springfield;  he  was  "solicited  to  furnish  a  copy  for  publication," 
which  was  duly  printed  in  The  Sangamon  Journal.    .    .    . 

One  night  in  December,  1839,  Lincoln,  Douglas,  Baker,  and 
some  other  gentlemen  of  note,  were  seated  at  Speed's  hospitable 
fire  in  the  store.  "They  got  to  talking  politics,  got  warm,  hot, 
angry.  "     Douglas  sprang  up  and  said: 

' '  Gentlemen,  this  is  no  place  to  talk  politics :  we  will  discuss  the 
questions  publicly  with  you.  "  .  .  .A  few  days  afterwards  the 
Whigs  had  a  meeting,  at  which  Mr.  Lincoln  reported  a  resolution 
challenging  the  Democrats  to  a  joint  debate.  The  challenge  was 
accepted.  .  .  .  The  discussion  was  known  as  the  great  debate. 
It  took  place  in  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  hearing  of  as 
many  people  as  could  get  into  the  building.  .  .  .  Lincoln's  speech 
was  considered  by  many  the  best  one  of  the  series. 

Lincoln  and  Douglas  follow^ed  Judge  Treat's  court  all  around 
the  circuit,  and  spoke  in  the  afternoons.  Here,  in  1840,  they  came 
in  collision,  as  they  did  in  1839,  and  as  they  continued  to  do  for 
twenty  or  more  years.    ... 

Lincoln  "was  very  sensitive,"  says  Mr.  Gillespie,  "where  he 
thought  he  had  failed  to  come  up  to  the  expectations  of  his  friends. 
I  remember  a  case.  He  was  pitted  by  the  Whigs,  in  1840,  to  debate 
with  Mr,  Douglas,  the  Democratic  champion.  Lincoln  did  not 
come  up  to  the  requirements  of  the  occasion.  He  was  conscious  of 
his  failure;  and  I  never  saw  any  man  so  much  distressed.  He 
begged  to  be  permitted  to  try  it  again,  and  was  reluctantly  indulged ; 
and  in  the  next  effort  he  transcended  our  highest  expectations.  I 
never  heard,  and  never  expect  to  hear,  such  a  triumphant  vindica- 
tion as  he  then  gave  of  Whig  measures  or  policy.  He  never  after- 
ward, to  my  knowledge,  fell  below  himself." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  223. 

Comes  Down  Through  the  Ceiling  and  Demands  Free  Speech 

In  the  same  year  [1840]  Colonel  Baker  was  making  a  speech 
to  a  promiscuous  audience  in  the  court-room.  ...  It  will  be 
remembered  that   Lincoln's  office  was  just   above,    and   he   was 


ISO  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


listening  to  Baker  through  a  large  hole,  or  trap-door,  in  the  ceil- 
ing. Baker  warmed  with  his  theme,  and,  growing  violent  and 
personally  offensive,  declared  at  length  that  "wherever  there  was 
a  land-ojBfice,  there  was  a  Democratic  newspaper  to  defend  its  cor- 
ruptions. " 

"This,"  said  John  B.  Webber,  "was  a  personal  attack  on  my 
brother,  George  Webber.  I  was  in  the  court  house,  and  in  my 
anger  cried: 

"  'Pull  him  down!'  " 

A  scene  of  great  confusion  ensued,  threatening  to  end  in  a 
general  riot,  in  which  Baker  was  likely  to  suffer. 

But  just  at  the  critical  moment  Lincoln's  legs  were  seen  coming 
through  the  hole ;  and  directly  his  tall  figure  was  standing  between 
Baker  and  the  audience,  gesticulating  for  silence. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "let  -us  not  disgrace  the  age  and  the 
country  in  which  we  live.  This  is  a  land  where  freedom  of  speech 
is  guaranteed.  Mr.  Baker  has  a  right  to  speak,  and  ought  to  be 
permitted  to  do  so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and  no  man  shall 
take  him  from  this  stand  if  I  can  prevent  it.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  230. 

"I  Never  Use  Any  Man's  Money  but  My  Own" 

It  was  after  he  had  become  a  lawyer  and  had  been  a  legislator. 
He  had  passed  through  a  period  of  great  poverty,  and  had  acquired 
his  education  in  the  law  through  many  perplexities,  inconveniences 
and  hardships,  and  had  met  with  temptations  such  as  few  men 
could  resist,  to  make  a  temporary  use  of  any  money  he  might  have 
in  his  hands. 

One  day,  seated  in  the  law-offfce  of  his  partner,  the  agent  of  the 
Post-office  Department  entered  and  inquired  if  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  within.  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  to  his  name,  and  was  informed 
that  the  agent  had  called  to  collect  the  balance  due  the  Department 
since  the  discontinuance  of  the  New  Salem  office. 

A  shade  of  perplexity  passed  over  Mr.  Lincoln's  face,  which  did 
not  escape  the  notice  of  friends  present.     One  of  them  said  at  once: 

"  Lincoln,  if  you  are  in  want  of  money,  let  us  help  you.  " 

He  made  no  reply,  but  suddenly  rose  and  pulled  out  from  a  pile 
of  books  a  little  old  trunk,  and,  returning  to  the  table,  asked  the 
agent  how  much  he  owed.     The  sum  was  named ;  then  Mr.  Lincoln 


"THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  151 

opened  the  trunk,  pulled  out  a  little  package  of  coins  wrapped  in  a 
cotton  rag,  and  counted  out  the  exact  sum,  amounting  to  more  than 
seventeen  dollars. 

After  the  agent  had  left  the  room,  Lincoln  remarked  quietly: 
"I  never  use  any  man's  money  but  my  own." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Paul  Selby,  page  62. 

"Which  Will  You  Take?" 

A  friend  came  to  him  to  borrow  a  "  biled' '  shirt.  "  I  have  only 
two,"  said  Lincoln,  "the  one  I  have  just  taken  off,  and  the  one  I 
have  on;  which  will  you  take?" 

As  told  by  a  friend  who  heard  it. 

The  Champion  of  the  Oppressed  and  Wronged 

He  was  chosen  to  the  Illinois  House  of  Representatives  for  the 
fourth  time  in  1840,  and  was  again  the  candidate  of  the  Whig 
minority  for  Speaker.  Named  for  elector  on  the  Harrison  ticket,  he 
spent  much  time  in  canvassing  the  central  counties  of  the  State 
especially,  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  Presidential  battle  on  the  Whig 
side,  either  Douglas  or  Calhoun  being  usually  at  hand  to  reply. 
Lincoln  regarded  the  latter  as  the  harder  to  meet.    .    .    . 

As  a  lawyer,  Lincoln  was  always  inclined  to  enter  heartily  into 
the  cause  of  one  whom  he  believed  to  be  wronged,  yet  lacking  means 
to  secure  redress  on  ordinary  terms.  .  .  .  One  instance  was  that 
of  a  poor  widow,  of  whose  pension  arrears  a  greedy  attorney  had 
kept  quite  an  undue  share.  When  her  case  was  stated  to  Lincoln, 
he  not  only  interested  himself  in  her  behalf,  but  became  indignant 
and  secured  prompt  retribution  without  legal  process  or  fee. 

He  was  occasionally  the  attorney  for  a  negro  defendant  whose 
freedom  was  in  question,  though  at  the  risk  of  prejudice  to  his 
political  standing.  Without  resorting  to  the  courts,  he  secured  the 
jrelease  of  a  free  negro  of  Illinois,  who  had  landed  from  a  steamer  in 
New  Orleans  in  violation  of  a  local  law,  and  was  to  have  been  sold 
for  want  of  means  to  pay  his  fine.  Lincoln  raised  the  needed  money, 
himself  a  contributor,  choosing  an  immediate  practical  remedy 
without  delaying  justice  by  inflammatory  talk.    .    .    . 

He  sometimes  defended  an  alleged  fugitive  slave.  .  .  .  He 
was  retained  in  a  suit  brought  in  Tazewell  County.  .  .  .to  enforce 
payment  of  a  promissory  note  given  in  payment  for  a  negro  woman 


152  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


named  Nance,  .  .  .  the  parties  in  court  being  residents  of  Illinois. 
Lincoln  was  counsel  for  the  defendant,  and  judgment  having  been 
rendered  for  the  other  side,  an  appeal  was  taken  to  the  Illinois 
Supreme  Court.  Before  that  tribunal  he  argued  the  case  in  1841, 
maintaining  that  the  contract  was  void  for  lack  of  consideration; 
that  under  the  ordinance  of  1789  and  the  Constitution  of  Illinois 
adopted  in  1818,  slavery  had  no  lawful  standing;  and  that  Nance, 
being  legally  a  free  woman,  could  not  be  the  subject  of  a  sale.  His 
contention  was  sustained  by  the  court,  and  the  question  as  to  slavery 
in  Illinois  was  settled 

At  Danville,  in  Vermilion  County,  which  borders  on  Indiana, 
he  had  a  case  for  the  plaintiff  of  which  John  P.  Usher  (twenty  years 
later  Secretary  of  the  Interior)  appeared  for  the  defendant.  .  .  . 
Lincoln  gained  the  suit  not  only  in  this  first  trial,  but  afterw-ard  on 
appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Mr.  Usher,  who  here  met  him  for 
the  first  time  and  knew  him  well  thencefonvard,  said  of  his  manner 
of  addressing  a  jury,  that  his  voice  was  so  smooth  and  attractive  as 
never  to  become  wearisome;  that  in  posture  and  gesture  he  was 
not  graceful  or  always  dignified — sometimes  placing  one  foot  in  a 
chair,  or  leaning  on  the  back  of  one,  sometimes  standing  with  his 
arms  akimbo — but  that  he  never  failed  to  be  heard  with  close  atten- 
tion and  lively  interest  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  argu- 
ment. 

During  his  last  term  in  the  Legislature,  Lincoln  was  for  some 
time  in  a  state  of  nervous  mental  depression.  As  told  by  his  friend 
Speed : 

In  the  winter  of  184 1  a  gloom  came  over  him  till  his  friends  were 
alarmed  for  his  life.  ...  In  his  deepest  gloom,  and  when  I  told 
him  he  would  die  unless  he  rallied,  he  said : 

"  I  am  not  afraid,  and  would  be  more  than  willing,  but  I  have 
an  irrepressible  desire  to  live  till  I  can  be  assured  that  the  world  is  a 
little  better  for  my  having  lived  in  it.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  54. 

"The  Nominal  Winner  Is  Often  the  Real  Loser" 

If  Stuart  had  been  ambitious  to  accumulate  a  fortune,  he 
would  have  been  disappointed  with  his  partner ;  for,  with  a  people 
as  litigious  as  the  early  Illinois  settlers,  it  was  a  simple  matter  to 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE'LADY^'  153 

stir  up  strife  and  make  work  for  the  lawyer,  and  Lincoln,  instead  of 
egging  clients  into  the  courts,  set  his  face  against  such  practice. 

"Discourage  litigation,"  was  his  advice  to  lawyers.  "Per- 
suade your  neighbors  to  compromise  whenever  you  can.  Point  out 
to  them  how  the  nominal  winner  is  often  the  real  loser — in  fees, 
expenses  and  waste  of  time.  As  a  peacemaker,  the  lawyer  has  a 
superior  opportunity  of  becoming  a  good  man.  There  will  always 
be  enough  business.  Never  stir  up  litigation.  A  worse  man  can 
scarcely  be  found  than  one  who  does  this.  Who  can  be  more  nearly 
a  fiend  than  he  who  habitually  overhauls  the  register  of  deeds  in 
search  of  defects  in  titles,  whereon  to  stir  up  strife  and  put  money 
in  his  pocket  ?  A  moral  tone  ought  to  be  infused  into  the  profession 
which  should  drive  such  men  out  of  it. " 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  102. 

Mary  Todd,  Her  Two  Suitors,  and  Her  Ambition 

It  was  about  the  year  1839  that  Lincoln  first  met  Miss  Mary 
Todd.     Born  at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  December  13,  181 8,  she  was 

one  of  four  daughters  of  Robert  S.  Todd  by  his  first  wife 

Mary  was  quite  young  at  the  time  of  her  mother's  death,  and  ere 
long  came  under  the  care  of  a  stepmother.  She  received  a  good 
education  in  the  higher  schools  of  her  native  city,  and  learned  to 
read  and  speak  the  French  language  in  the  private  school  of  a 
French  lady,  nearly  opposite  the  "  Ashland  "  mansion  of  Henry  Clay. 
The  house  of  her  eldest  sister  at  Springfield,  after  the  latter 's  mar- 
riage to  Mr.  Edwards — colleague  of  Lincoln  in  the  Legislature,  and 
son  of  a  former  United  States  Senator — was  open  to  Mary,  who 
came  there  to  live  soon  after  her  school-days  at  Lexington  were 
ended. 

Major  Stuart  was  her  cousin.  ...  A  young  lady  of  unusual 
personal  attractions  and  bright  intellectual  faculties,  Mary  was  also 
of  a,greeable  manners.  She  was  not  long  without  admirers,  if  she 
may  not  have  been  properly  called  the  "belle"  of  the  place.  The 
higher  and  more  exclusive  circles  of  her  native  city  to  which  she 
belonged,  were  unsurpassed  in  social  refinement  and  mental  cul- 
tivation in  any  Southern  community  of  the  time  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies. 

Of  all  her  sex  with  whom  Lincoln  had  become  acquainted,  Mary 


154  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Todd  was  undoubtedly  the  one  best  suited  to  win  his  admiration 
and  a  more  tender  regard.  Aside  from  the  dissimilarity  in  their 
earlier  training  and  position,  however,  there  was  considerable  in 
their  years,  he  being  past  thirty,  and  she  little  more  than  twenty. 
At  his  age  an  attachment  of  this  sort  is  likely  to  be  very  earnest.    .    . 

The  lady  was  ambitious;  dazzled  by  the  glory  of  the  great 
statesman  to  whom  her  father  was  a  personal  and  political  friend, 
her  highest  ideal  of  manhood  was  typified  by  the  eloquent  orator 
and  the  expectant  President."  She  received  attentions  from  two 
persons  who  took  a  leading  part,  on  opposite  sides,  in  the  Harrison 
canvass — one  tall  and  imgainly,  yet  amiable,  modest  and  kind- 
hearted,  already  noted  as  a  speaker  and  aspiring  to  a  higher  position 
than  he  had  been  given  by  prolonged  legislative  service ;  the  other, 
low  in  stature,  but  strong  in  energy  and  pluck,  graceful  in  manner, 
bold,  ready,  and  pleasing  in  speech,  as  ambitious  as  his  rival,  and 
deemed  by  his  friends  a  more  eloquent  orator,  though  on  what  was 
to  her  the  wrong  side. 

Mary  Todd  preferred  the  principles  and  habits  of  Lincoln  to 
those  of  Douglas,  as  she  avowed  afterward ;  and  if  she  was  also 
influenced  by  ambition,  her  political  intuition — famous  in  later  life 
— ^was  not  now  at  fault.  To  a  friend  of  her  girlhood  she  wrote  of 
her  engagement,  speaking  plainly  of  the  defects  of  her  intended 
husband  in  his  personal  appearance  especially,  and  adding : 

"  But  I  mean  to  make  him  President  of  the  United  States. 
You  will  see  that,  as  I  always  told  you,  I  will  yet  be  the  President's 
wife." 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  6i 

A  Description  of  Miss  Todd 

Mary  Todd  had  a  married  sister — Mrs.  Edwards — living  in 
Springfield ;  and  thither  she  came  when  she  was  in  her  twenty-first 
year.  .  .  ."to  avoid  living  under  the  same  roof  with  a  step- 
mother. "  And  now  I  shall  let  the  good  Herndon  describe  her  in 
his  own  language : 

"  She  was  of  average  height,  weighing,  when  I  first  saw  her, 
about  one  himdred  and  thirty  pounds.  She  was  rather  compactly 
built,  and  had  a  well-rounded  face,  rich  dark-brown  hair,  and 
bluish-gray  eyes.     In  her  bearing  she  was  proud  but  handsome 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY"  155 

and  vivacious.  Her  education  had  been  in  no  wise  defective. 
She  was  a  good  conversationalist,  using  with  equal  fluency  the 
French  and  English  languages;  when  she  used  a  pen,  its  point  was 
sure  to  be  sharp,  and  she  wrote  with  wit  and  ability.  She  not  only 
had  a  quick  intellect,  but  an  intuitive  judgment  of  men  and  their 
motives.  In  her  figure  and  physical  proportions,  in  education, 
bearing,  temperament,  history — in  everything  she  was  the  exact 
reverse  of  Lincoln."    .... 

A  further  point  in  Mary  Todd's  character  has  to  be  noticed. 
This  is  what  one  of  her  sisters  says  of  her : 

"  Mary  was  quick,  gay  and  in  the  social  world  the  more  brilliant. 
She  loved  show  and  power,  and  was  one  of  the  most  ambitious 
women  I  ever  knew.  She  used  to  contend,  when  a  girl,  to  her 
friends  in  Kentucky,  that  she  was  destined  to  marry  a  President. 
I  have  heard  her  say  that  myself,  and  after  mingling  in  society  in 
Springfield,  she  repeated  the  seemingly  absurd  and  idle  boast.  " 

Some  Old  Love  Stories,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  page  46. 

« 

"  I  Should  Like  to  Dance  with  You  the  Worst  Way  " 

Lincoln  made  his  first  appearance  in  society  in  Springfield, 
Illinois.  It  was  not  a  prepossessing  figure  which  he  cut  in  a  ball- 
room, but  still  he  was  occasionally  found  there.  Miss  Mary  Todd, 
who  afterward  became  his  wife,  was  the  magnet  which  drew  the 
tall,  awkward  young  man  from  his  den.  One  evening  Lincoln 
approached  Miss  Todd,  and  said,  in  his  peculiar  idiom: 

"Miss  Todd,  I  should  like  to  dance  with  you  the  worst  way." 

The  young  woman  accepted  the  inevitable,  and  hobbled  around 
the  room  with  him.  When  she  returned  to  her  seat,  one  of  her 
companions  asked,  mischievously: 

"Well,  Mary,  did  he  '  dance  with  you  the  worst  way?'  " 

"Yes,"  replied  Miss  Todd,  "the  very  worst!" 

Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  383. 

Appears  in  Behalf  of  Jefferson,  the  Actor 

Where  he  saw  injustice  he  was  quick  to  offer  his  services  to  the 
wronged  party.  A  pleasant  example  of  this  is  related  by  Joseph 
Jefferson  in  his  "Autobiography."     In  1839,  Jefferson,  then  a  lad 


156  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

of  ten  years,  traveled  through  IlHnois  with  his  father's  theatrical 
company.  After  playing  at  Chicago,  Quincy,  Peoria  and  Pekin, 
the  company  went  in  the  fall  to  Springfield,  where  the  sight  of  the 
Legislature  tempted  the  elder  Jefferson  and  his  partner  to  remain 
throughout  the  season.  But  there  was  no  theater.  Not  to  be 
daunted  they  built  one.  But  hardly  had  they  completed  it  before 
a  religious  revival  broke  out  in  the  town,  and  the  church  people 
turned  all  their  influence  against  the  theater.  So  effectually  did 
they  work  that  a  law  was  passed  by  the  municipality  irhposing  a 
license  w^hich  was  practically  prohibitory. 

"  In  the  midst  of  our  trouble,  "  says  Jefferson,  a  "  young  lawyer 
called  on  the  managers.  He  had  heard  of  the  injustice,  and  offered, 
if  they  would  place  the  matter  in  his  hands,  to  have  the  license  taken 
off,  declaring  that  he  only  desired  to  see  fair  play,  and  he  would 
accept  no  fee  whether  he  failed  or  succeeded.  The  young  lawyer 
began  his  harangue.  He  handled  the  subject  with  tact,  skill  and 
humor,  tracing  the  history  of  the  drama  from  the  time  when 
Thespis  acted  in  a  cart  to  the  stage  of  to-day.  He  illustrated  his 
speech  with  a  number  of  anecdotes,  and  kept  the  council  in  a  roar  of 
laughter.  His  good  humor  prevailed,  and  the  exorbitant  tax  was 
taken  off." 

The  "young  lawyer"  was  Lincoln. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  248. 

A  Young   Lawyer   Offers  to   Pay  Half   the  Damages  Occasioned  by  His 

Funny  Stories 

We  know  an  old  gentleman  here, — a  wagon-maker  by  trade, — 
who  commenced  plying  the  same  craft  when  young  at  Mechanics - 
ville,  near  the  town  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  immortalized  by  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

He  knew  him  well  when  he  was  just  a  smart  young  lawyer, 
smarter  than  most  of  them,  and  so  sought  after  in  difficult  cases. 

The  cartwright  had  a  case  to  win  or  lose,  connected  with  his 
trade.  On  the  other  side  the  best  lawyer  of  his  little  town  w^as 
employed  and  his  own  was  no  match  for  him.-  The  eventful  day 
had  come  and  his  father-in-law  quaked  for  the  result. 

"  Son,  "  he  said  to  him.  "  you've  got  just  time.  Take  this  letter 
to  my  young  friend,  Abe  Lincoln,  and  bring  him  back  in  the  buggy 
to  appear  in  the  case.     Guess  he'll  come  if  he  can ! " 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  157 

So  he  set  off.  He  found  the  young  lawyer,  not  in  his  office, 
but  at  a  street  corner,  surrounded  by  a  troop  of  small  urchins,  he 
laughing  heartily  at  the  fun.  The  letter  was  handed  to  him.  But, 
being  otherwise  engaged,  he  said: — 

"All  right,  wait  a  minute,  I  must  clean  out  these  young'uns 
at  'knucks'  first!" 

The  operation  went  on  amid  peals  of  laughter.  That  concluded, 
he  proceeded  to  accompany  the  son-in-law  of  his  friend  to  the 
neighboring  town.  And  the  peals  of  ringing  laughter  continued, 
as  Abe  recounted  story  after  story  in  his  inimitable  way,  so  much 
so,  that  the  driver  says  to-day,  he  never  had  such  a  job  to  hold 
his  lines  and  guide  his  horse  in  his  life.  At  length,  so  convulsed 
was  he  that  the  horse  guided  himself — into  the  ditch — turned  over 
the  vehicle,  upset  the  occupants  and  smashed  up  the  buggy. 

"You  stay  behind  and  look  after  the  buggy,"  said  Lincoln, 
"I'll  walk  on." 

This  he  did  in  time  for  the  court,  went  in  and  won  the  case. 

"  What  am  I  to  pay  you? "  inquired  the  delighted  client. 

"I  hope  you  won't  think  ten  or  fifteen  dollars  too  much," 
answered  the  young  lawyer,  "but  I'll  pay  the  half -hire  of  the  buggy 
and  half  the  cost  of  getting  it  repaired.  " 

Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Loiiisa  A'hmuty  Nash.     The  Green  Bag,  Vol.  IX,  November, 
1897,  page  479. 

In  the   "Tippecanoe,"   "Log  Cabin,"  "Hard   Cider"  Campaign 

Early  in  1840  it  seemed  possible  that  the  Whigs  might  elect 
General  Harrison  to  the  Presidency,  and  this  hope  lent  added 
energy  to  the  party  even  in  the  States  where  the  majority  was  so 
strongly  against  them  as  in  Illinois.  Lincoln  was  nominated  for 
Presidential  elector  and  threw  himself  with  ardor  into  the  canvass, 
traversing  a  great  part  of  the  State  and  speaking  with  remarkable 
effect.  Only  one  of  the  speeches  he  made  during  the  year  has  been 
preserved  entire.  This  was  an  address  delivered  in  Springfield  as 
one  of  a  series — a  sort  of  oratorical  tournament,  participated  in  by 
Douglas,  Calhoun,  Lamborn,  and  Thomas  on  the  part  of  the  Demo- 
crats, and  Logan,  Baker,  Browning  and  Lincoln  on  the  part  of  the 
Whigs. 

The  discussion  began  with  great  enthusiasm  and  with  crowded 
houses,  but  by  the  time  it  came  to  Lincoln's  duty  to  close  the  debate 


158 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


the  fickle  public  had  tired  of  intellectual  jousts,  and  he  spoke  to  a 
comparatively  thin  house.  But  his  speech  was  considered  the  best 
of  the  series,  and  there  was  such  a  demand  for  it  that  he  wrote 
it  out,  and  it  was  printed  and  circulated  in  the  spring  as  a  campaign 
document. 

It  was  a  remarkable  speech  in  many  respects — and  in  none 

^ __^_____ more  than    this,  that  it 

{  represented   the    highest 

expression  of  what  might 
be  called  his  "first  man- 
ner." It  was  the  most 
important  and  the  last 
speech  of  its  class  which 
he  ever  delivered — not 
destitute  of  sound  and 
close  reasoning,  yet  filled 
with  boisterous  fun  and 
florid  rhetoric.  It  was, 
in  short,  a  rattling  stump 
speech  of  the  kind  then 
popular  in  the  West. 

One  or  two  extracts 
will  give  some  idea  of  its 
humorous  satire  and  its 
lurid  fervor.  Attacking 
the  corruptions  and  de- 
falcations of  the  Ad- 
ministration he  said : 

"Mr.  Lamborn  in- 
sists that  the  difference 
between  the  Van  Buren 
party  and  the  Whigs  is 
that,  although  the  for- 
mer sometimes  err  in  practice  they  are  always  correct  in  principle, 
whereas  the  latter  are  wrong  in  principle ;  and  the  better  to  impress 
this  proposition  he  uses  a  figurative  expression  in  these  words, 
'The  Democrats  are  vulnerable  in  the  heel,  but  they  are  sound  in 
the  heart  and  head.'  .    .   . 

"It  seems  that  this  malady  of  their  heels  operates  on  the  sound- 


WILLIAM  HENRY  HARRISON 
("Old  Tippecanoe.") 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY 


159 


headed  and  honest-hearted  creatures  very  much  as  the  cork  leg  in 
the  comic  song  did  on  its  owner,  which,  when  he  once  got  started  on 
it,  the  more  he  tried  to  stop  it  the  more  it  would  run  away. 

"At  the  hazard  of  wearing  this  point  threadbare,  I  will  relate 
an  anecdote  which  seems  to  be  too  strikingly  in  point  to  be  omitted. 

'  'A  witty  Irish  soldier  who  was  always  boasting  of  his  bravery 
when  no  danger  was 
near,  but  who  invariably 
retreated  without  orders 
at  the  first  charge  of  the 
engagement,  being  asked 
by  his  captain  why  he 
did  so,  replied: 

"  'Captain,  I  have  as 
brave  a  heart  as  Julius 
Caesar  ever  had,  but 
somehow  or  other,  w^hen- 
ever  danger  approaches, 
my  cowardly  legs  will  run 
away  with  it.' 

"So  with  Mr.  Lam- 
born's  party — they  take 
the  public  money  into 
their  hands  for  the  most 
laudable  purpose  that 
wise  heads  and  honest 
hearts  can  dictate ;  but 
before  they  can  possibly 
get  it  out  again,  their 
rascally  vulnerable  heels 
mil  run  away  with 
them."  J^^''  ^^^^^ 

("  And  Tyler,  too.") 


The  speech  concludes  with  these  swelling  words : 

"Mr.  Lamborn  refers  to  the  late  elections  in  the  States,  and  from 
their  results  confidently  predicts  every  State  in  the  Union  will  vote 
for  Mr.  Van  Buren  at  the  next  Presidential  election.  Address  that 
argument  to  cowards  and  slaves ;  with  the  free  and  the  brave  it  will 


i6o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

effect  nothing.  It  may  be  true;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many  free  coun- 
tries have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers,  but  if  she  shall, 
be  it  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I  was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that 
I  never  deserted  her.  I  know  the  great  volcano  at  Washington, 
aroused  and  directed  by  the  evil  spirit  that  reigns  there,  is  belching 
forth  the  lava  of  political  corruption  in  a  current  broad  and  deep, 
which  is  sweeping  with  frightful  velocity  over  the  whole  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  bidding  fair  to  leave  unscathed  no  green  spot 
or  living  thing ;  while  on  its  bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the 
wave  of  Hell,  the  imps  of  the  Evil  Spirit  and  fiendishly  taunting  all 
those  who  dare  to  resist  its  destroying  course  with  the  hopelessness 
of  their  efforts;  and  knowing  this,  I  cannot  deny  that  all  may  be 
swept  away.  Broken  by  it  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I  never  will. 
The  probability  that  we  may  fall  in  the  struggle  ought  not  to  deter 
us  from  the  support  of  a  cause  we  believe  to  be  just.  It  shall  not 
deter  me.  If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and  expand  to 
those  dimensions  not  w^holly  unworthy  of  its  almighty  Architect,  it 
is  when  I  contemplate  standing  up  boldly  alone,  hurling  defiance 
at  her  victorious  oppressors. 

"Here,  without  contemplating  consequences,  before  Heaven, 
and  in  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fealty  to  the  just  cause,  as 
I  deem  it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love.  And  who 
that  thinks  with  me  will  not  fearlessly  adopt  that  oath  that  I  take  ? 
Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  right,  and  we  may  succeed.  But 
if  after  all  we  should  fail,  be  it  so.  We  still  shall  have  the  proud 
consolation  of  saying  to  our  consciences,  and  to  the  departed  shade 
of  our  country's  freedom,  that  the  cause  approved  of  our  judgment 
and  adored  of  our  hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains,  in  torture,  in  death, 
we  never  faltered  in  defending.'' 

These  perfervid  and  musical  metaphors  of  devotion  and  defi- 
ance have  often  been  quoted  as  Mr.  Lincoln's  heroic  challenge  to  the 
slave  power.  .  .  .  But  they  were  simply  the  utterances  of 
a  young  and  ardent  Whig,  earnestly  advocating  the  election  of 
"Old  Tippecanoe." .  .  .  The  whole  campaign  was  carried  on  in  a 
tone  somewhat  shrill.  The  Whigs  were  recovering  from  the  numb- 
ness into  which  they  had  fallen  during  the  time  of  Jackson's  impe- 
rious predominance,  and  in  the  new  prospect  of  success  they  felt  all 
the  excitement  of  prosperous  rebels. 


"THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY"  loi 

The  taunts  of  the  party  in  power,  when  Harrison's  nomination 
was  first  mentioned,  their  sneers  at  "hard  cider"  and  "log  cabins," 
had  been  dexterously  adopted  as  the  slogan  of  the  opposition,  and 
gave  rise  to  the  distinguishing 


Garrison  began  to  publish  the  "Liberator"  1831 

Nullification  in  South  Carolina 1832 

Chicago  founded 1833 

McCormick's  reaper 1834 

Rise  of  Whig  Party 1834 

Coal  extensively  used 1835 

Van  Buren  made  President 1837 

Business  panic 1837 

Repudiation  of  State  debts 1838 

Congress   rejects  petitions  to  abolish  slav- 
ery in  the  District  of  Columbia 1838 

Mormons  settle  Nauvoo,  Illinois 1839 

Cunard  line  of  steamers   to  Europe  estab- 
lished    1840 

"  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too  "  campaign. .  .  1840 


features  of  that  extraordinary 
campaign.  Log  cabins  were 
built  in  every  Western  county, 
tuns  of  hard  cider  were  filled 
and  emptied  at  all  the  Whig 
mass  meetings ;  and  as  the  can- 
vass gained  momentum  a 
curious  kind  of  music  added 
its  inspiration  to  the  cause; 
and  after  the  Maine  election 

was  over,  w4th  its  augury  of  triumph,  every  Whig  w^ho  was  able  to 
sing  or  even  to  make  a  joyful  noise,  was  roaring  the  inquiry, 

"Oh,  have  you  heard  how  old  Maine  went?" 

and  the  profane  but  powerfully  accented  response, 

"She  went. 
Hell-bent, 

For  Governor  Kent, 
And  'Tippecanoe,' 
And  Tyler,  too." 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  172. 

Drew  the  Line  at  Stealing  Hens 

Lincoln  had  assisted  in  the  prosecution  of  a  man  who  had 
appropriated  some  of  his  neighbor's  hen-roosts.  Jogging  home  along 
the  highway  with  the  foreman  of  the  jury,  who  had  convicted  the 
hen-stealer,  he  complimented  Lincoln  on  the  zeal  and  ability  of  the 
prosecution,  and  remarked: 

"Why,  when  the  country  was  young,  and  I  was  stronger  than 
I  am  now,  I  didn't  mind  packing  off  a  sheep  now  and  then — but, 
stealing  hens!" — the  good  man's  scorn  could  not  find  words  to 
express  his  opinion  of  a  man  who  would  steal  hens. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Paul  Selby,  page  88. 


1 62  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

An  Illustration  of  His  Strength  and  Courage 

The  exciting  canvass  of  1840  had  come  to  a  final  issue  at  the 
polls.  On  the  line  of  railway  then  in  construction  near  by,  there  was 
a  large  gang  of  laborers,  mostly  of  the  "alien"  class,  whose  right  to 
vote  had  been  denied,  but  sustained  by  the  new  Supreme  Court  organ- 
ized under  the  "  Douglas  bill.  "  The  contractor  who  employed  them 
was  an  ardent  Democrat,  and  on  election  day  it  came  to  the  ears 
of  Lincoln  that  he  had  marched  up  his  battalion  of  voters  and 
taken  possession  of  one  of  the  polling  places.  It  was  not  a  ques- 
tion now  whether  these  men  should  be  allowed  to  vote;  but  that 
they  should  refuse  honest  voters  access  to  the  ballot-box  was  not 
to  be  borne  with  resignation.  With  true  Berserker  rage  he  hurried 
to  the  scene,  faced  the  offenders,  and— without  need  of  blows — 
drove  back  the  riotous  crowd.  From  the  statements  of  Mr.  Speed, 
who  gave  the  substance  of  this  account  from  his  own  knowledge, 
it  appears  that  Lincoln  started,  cudgel  in  hand,  under  an  impulse 
to  clear  the  way  to  the  polls  by  force. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  S9. 

Childlike  Tenderness 

One  day  Lincoln,  Baker,  Hardin,  Speed  and  others  were  riding 
on  horseback  along  the  road,  two-and-two,  some  distance  from  Spring- 
field. In  passing  a  thicket  of  wild  plum  and  crab-apple  trees, 
Lincoln  and  Hardin  being  in  the  rear,  the  former  discovered  by  the 
roadside  two  young  birds  not  old  enough  to  fly.  They  had  been 
shaken  from  their  nest  by  a  recent  gale. 

"The  old  bird,"  said  Mr.  Speed,  "was  fluttering  about  and 
wailing  as  a  mother  ever  does  for  her  babes.  Lincoln  stopped, 
hitched  his  horse,  caught  the  birds,  hunted  the  nest,  and  placed 
them  in  it.  The  rest  of  us  rode  on  to  a  creek,  and  while  the  horses 
were  drinking,  Hardin  rode  up. 
)         "  'Where  is  Lincoln?'  said  one. 

"  *0h,  when  I  saw  him  l9,st  he  had  two,  little  birds  in  his  hand 
hunting  for  their  nest.' 

In  perhaps  an  hour  he  came.  They  laughed  at  him.  He  said, 
with  much  emphasis: 

"  'Gentlemen,  you  may  laugh,  but  I  could  not  have  slept  well 
to-night  if  I  had  not  saved  those  birds.  Their  cries  would  have 
rung  in  my  ears. '  " 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  59. 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  163 

"Got  the  Worst  of  It  in  a  Horse  Trade" 

When  Lincoln  was  a  young  lawyer  in  Illinois,  he  and  a  certain 
judge  got  to  bantering  each  other  about  trading  horses;  and  it  was 
agreed  that  the  next  morning  at  nine  o'clock  they  should  make  a 
trade,  the  horses  to  be  unseen  up  to  that  hour,  and  no  backing  out, 
under  a  forfeiture  of  twenty-five  dollars. 

At  the  hour  appointed,  the  judge  came  up,  leading  the  "sorri- 
est" looking  specimen  of  a  horse  ever  seen  in  those  parts.  In  a  few 
minutes  Mr.  Lincoln  was  seen  approaching  with  a  wooden  sawhorse 
on  his  shoulder. 

Loud  were  the  shouts  and  laughter  of  the  crowd,  and  both  were 
greatly  increased  when  Lincoln,  on  surveying  the  judge's  animal, 
set  down  the  sawhorse  and  exclaimed: 

"Well,  Judge,  this  is  the  first  time  I  ever  got  the  worst  of  it  in  a 
horse  trade." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  84. 

As  a  Lawyer  and  a  Temperance  Man 

No  man  ever  believed  in  his  calling  more  thoroughly  than  Lin- 
coln, and  he  had  no  patience  with  the  much-mouthed  charge  that 
honesty  was  not  compatible  with  its  practice. 

' '  Let  no  young  man  choosing  the  law  for  a  calling  yield  to  that 
popular  belief,"  he  wrote.  "If,  in  your  judgment,  you  cannot  be  an 
honest  lawyer,  resolve  to  be  honest  without  being  a  lawyer.  Choose 
some  other  occupation  rather  than  one  in  the  choosing  of  which  you 
do,  in  advance,  consent  to  be  a  knave . " 

Lincoln  never  sought  to  make  himself  a  general  favorite,  and 
yet  he  had  not  been  long  in  New  Salem  before  he  was  the  most 
popular  man  in  town ...  He  could  tell  a  good  story,  make  a 
creditable  stump  speech,  give  an  excellent  account  of  himself  in 
contests  of  strength,  and  hold  his  own  against  all  comers  in  the  daily 
debates  at  the  village  forum.  Moreover,  he  listened  attentively 
when  other  people  talked,  never  boasted  of  his  physical  prowess, 
and  was  tolerant  of  all  intelligent  opinion.  His  extreme  popularity 
with  men  of  his  own  age  is  particularly  remarkable,  however,  when 
we  remember  that  he  neither  drank  nor  smoked ;  for  young  men  are 
apt  to  regard  the  use  of  tobacco  and  stimulants  as  essential  to  good- 
fellowship  and  manly  cameraderie,  and  this  was  especially  true  of  the 
settler  days. 


i64  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  did  not  drink  intoxicants  because  he  did  not  like  them, 
and  he  did  not  smoke  for  a  similar  reason. 

Judge  Douglas  once  undertook  to  ridicule  him  on  this  subject. 

"What!  Are  you  a  temperance  man?"  he  inquired  sneeringly. 

"No,"  drawled  Lincoln,  with  a  smile,  "I'm  not  a  temperance 
man,  but  I'm  temperate  in  this,  to  wit: — I  don't  drink." 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  33. 

A  Judicial  Opinion  as  to  the  Proper  Length  for  a  Man's  Legs 

Whenever  the  people  of  Lincoln's  neighborhood  engaged  in 
dispute ;  whenever  a  bet  was  to  be  decided ;  when  they  differed  on 
points  of  religion  or  politics ;  when  they  wanted  to  get  out  of  trouble, 
or  desired  advice  regarding  anything  on  the  earth,  below  it,  above  it, 
or  under  the  sea,  they  went  to  "Abe." 

Two  fellows,  after  a  hot  dispute  lasting  some  hours,  over  the 
problem  as  to  how  long  a  man's  legs  should  be  in  proportion  to  the 
size  of  his  body,  stamped  into  Lincoln's  office  one  day  and  put  the 
question  to  him. 

Lincoln  listened  gravely  to  the  arguments  advanced  by  both 
contestants,  spent  some  time  in  "reflecting"  upon  the  matter,  and 
then,  turning  around  in  his  chair  and  facing  the  disputants,  delivered 
his  opinion  with  all  the  gravity  of  a  judge  sentencing  a  fellow-being 
to  death. 

"This  question  has  been  a  source  of  controversy,"  he  said, 
slowly  and  deliberately,  "for  untold  ages,  and  it  is  about  time  it 
should  be  definitely  decided.  It  has  led  to  bloodshed  in  the  past, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  it  will  not  lead  to  the  same  in  the 
future. 

"After  much  thought  and  consideration,  not  to  mention  mental 
worry  and  anxiety,  it  is  my  opinion,  all  side  issues  being  swept 
aside,  that  a  man's  lower  limbs,  in  order  to  preserve  harmony  of 
proportion,  should  be  at  least  long  enough  to  reach  from  his  body  to 
the  ground." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  215. 

The  Broken  Engagement — Mystery  and  Misery 

Much  to  the  surprise  of  Springfield  society,  however,  the  court- 
ship took  a  sudden  turn.  Whether  it  was  caprice  or  jealousy,  or 
new  attachment,  or  mature  reflection,  will  always  remain  a  mystery. 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY"  165 

Every  such  case  is  a  law  unto  itself,  and  neither  science  nor  poetry 
is  ever  able  to  analyze  or  explain  its  causes  and  effects.  The  con- 
flicting stories  then  current,  and  the  varying  conditions  that  yet 
exist,  either  fail  to  agree  or  to  fit  the  sparse  facts  that  came  to  light. 
There  remains  no  dispute,  however,  that  the  occurrence,  whatever 
shape  it  took,  threw  Mr.  Lincoln  into  a  deeper  despondency  than 
any  he  had  yet  experienced,  for  on  January  23,  1841,  he  wrote  to 
his  law  partner,  John  T.  Stuart: 

' '  For  not  giving  you  a  general  summary  of  the  news  you  must 
pardon  me;  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  do  so.  I  am  now  the  most 
miserable  man  living.  If  what  I  feel  were  equally  distributed  to  the 
whole  human  family,  there  could  not  be  one  cheerful  face  on  earth. 
Whether  I  shall  ever  be  better,  I  cannot  tell ;  I  awfully  forebode  I 
shall  not.  To  remain  as  I  am  is  impossible ;  I  must  die  or  be  better." 

Apparently  his  engagement  to  Miss  Todd  was  broken  off,  but 
whether  that  was  the  result  or  the  cause  of  his  period  of  gloom  seems 
still  a  matter  of  conjecture.  His  mind  was  so  perturbed  that  he 
felt  unable  to  attend  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature  of  which  he  was 
a  member;  and  after  its  close  his  intimate  friend,  Joshua  F.  Speed 
carried  him  off  for  a  visit  to  Kentucky.  The  change  of  scene  and 
surroundings  proved  of  great  benefit.  He  returned  home  about 
midsummer  very  much  improved,  but  not  yet  completely  restored 
to  a  natural  mental  equipoise. 

While  on  their  visit  to  Kentucky,  Speed  had  likewise  fallen  in 
love,  and  in  the  following  winter  had  become  afflicted  with  doubts 
and  perplexities  akin  to  those  from  which  Lincoln  had  suffered. 
It  now  became  his  turn  to  give  sympathy  and  counsel  to  his  friend, 
and  he  did  this  with  a  warmth  and  delicacy  born  of  his  own  spiritual 
trials,  not  yet  entirely  overmastered.  He  wrote  letter  after  letter 
to  Speed  to  convince  him  that  his  doubts  about  not  truly  loving  the 
woman  of  his  choice  were  all  nonsense. 

"Why,  Speed,  if  you  did  not  truly  love  her,  although  you  might 
not  wish  her  death,  you  would  most  certainly  be  resigned  to  it. 
Perhaps  this  point  is  no  longer  a  question  with  you,  and  my  per- 
tinacious dwelling  upon  it  is  a  rude  intrusion  upon  your  feelings. 
If  so,  you  must  pardon  me.  You  know  the  hell  I  have  suffered  on 
that  point,  and  how  tender  I  am  upon  it.      .      .     I  am  now  fully 


i66 


THE  STORY- LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


convinced  that  you  love  her  as  ardently  as  you  are  capable  of  loving 
It  is  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  both  you  and  me  to  dream 
dreams  of  Elysium  far  exceeding  all  that  anything  earthly  can 
realize." 

When  Lincoln  heard  that  Speed  was  finally  married,  he  wrote 
him: 

"It  cannot  be  told  how  it  now  thrills  me  with  joy  to  hear  you 

say  you  are  'far  hap- 
pier than  you  ever 
expected  to  be.' 
That  much,  I  know, 
is  enough.  I  know 
you  too  well  to  sup- 
pose your  expecta- 
tions were  not,  at 
least,  sometimes  ex- 
travagant ;  and  if 
the  reality  exceeds 
them  all,  I  say, 
'Enough,  dear  Lord.' 
I  am  not  going  be- 
yond the  truth  when  I  tell  you  that  the  short  space  it  took  me  to  read 
your  last  letter  gave  me  more  pleasure  than  the  total  sum  of  all  I 
have  enjoyed  since  the  fatal  first  of  January,  1841.  Since  then  it 
seems  to  me  I  should  have  been  entirely  happy,  but  for  the  never- 
absent  idea  that  there  is  one  still  unhappy  whom  I  have  con- 
tributed to  make  so.  That  still  kills  my  soul.  I  cannot  but  re- 
proach myself  for  even  wishing  to  be  happy  while  she  is  otherwise." 

A  Short  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  John  G.  Nicolay,  page  63. 

An  Untrue  Story  About  Lincoln 

The  breaking  of  the  engagement  between  Miss  Todd  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  known  at  the  time  to  all  their  friends.  Lincoln's 
melancholy  was  evident  to  them  all,  nor  did  he,  indeed,  attempt 
to  disguise  it.  He  wrote  and  spoke  freely  to  his  intimates  of  the 
despair  which  possessed  him,  and  of  his  sense  of  dishonor.  The 
episode  caused  a  great  amount  of  gossip,  as  was  to  be  expected. 
After  Mr.   Lincoln's  assassination  and  Mrs.   Lincoln's  sad  death, 


JOSHUA  F.  SPEED  AND  HIS  WIFE 


THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY" 


167 


various  accounts  of  the  courtship  and  marriage  were  circulated. 
It  remained,  however,  for  one  of  Lincoln's  law  partners,  Mr.  W,  H. 
Herndon,  to  develop  and  circulate  the  most  sensational  of  all  the 
versions  of  the  rupture.  According  to  Mr.  Herndon,  the  engage- 
ment between  the  two  was  broken  in  the  most  violent  and  public 
way  possible,  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  failing  to  appear  at  the  wedding. 
Mr.  Herndon  even  describes  the  scene  in  detail .... 

Mr,  Herndon  does  not  pretend  to  found  his  story  on  any  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  the  affair.  He  was  in  Springfield  at  the  time, 
a  clerk  in  Speed's  store,  but  did  not  have  then,  nor,  indeed,  did  he 
ever  have,  any  social  relations  with  the  families  in  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  always  a  welcome  guest.  His  authority  for  the  story  is  a 
remark  which  he  says  Mrs.  Ninian  Edwards  made  to  him  in  an 
interview:  "Lincoln  and  Mary  were  engaged;  everything  was 
ready  and  prepared  for  the  marriage,  even  to  the  supper.  Mr. 
Lincoln  failed  to  meet  his  engagement;  cause,  insanity." 

This  remark,  it  should  be  noted,  is  not  from  a  manuscript 
written  by  Mrs.  Edwards,  but  in  a  report 
of  an  interview  with  her,  w^ritten  by  Mr. 
Herndon.  Supposing,  however,  that  the 
statement  was  made  exactly  as  Mr.  Herndon 
reports  it,  it  certainly  does  not  justify  any 
such  sensational  description  as  Mr.  Herndon 
gives. 

If  such  a  thing  had  ever  occurred,  it 
could  not  have  failed  to  be  known,  of 
course,  even  to  its  smallest  details,  by  all 
the  relatives  and  friends  of  both  Miss  Todd 
and  Mr.  Lincoln.  Nobody,  however,  ever 
heard  of  this  wedding  party  until  Mr. 
Herndon  gave  his  material  to  the  public. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  174 


MRS.  NINIAN  W.  EDWARDS 
Mary  Todd's  sister  (later  in  life') 


Mary  Todd's  Cousin  Says  "  No !" 

One  of  the  closest  friends  of  the  Lincolns  throughout  their 
lives  was  a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's,  Mrs.  Grimsley,  afterwards 
Mrs.  Dr.  Brown.  Mrs.  Grimsley  lived  in  Springfield,  in  the  most 
intimate  and  friendly  relations  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  the 
first  six  months  of  their  life  in  the  White  House  she  spent  with 


1 68  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


them.  She  was  a  woman  of  unusual  culture,  and  of  the  rarest 
sweetness  and  graciousness  of  character.  Some  months  before 
Mrs.  Brown's  death,  in  August,  1895,  a  copy  of  Mr.  Herndon's 
story  was  sent  her,  with  a  request  that  she  write  for  publication 
her  knowledge  of  the  affair.     In  her  reply  she  said : 

"  Did  Mr.  Lincoln  fail  to  appear  when  the  invitations  were 
out,  the  guests  invited,  and  the  supper  ready  for  the  wedding? 
I  will  say  emphatically,  'No!' 

"There  may  have  been  a  little  shadow  of  foimdation  for  Mr. 
Herndon's  lively  imagination  to  play  upon,  in  that,  the  year 
previous  to  their  marriage  and  when  Mr.  Lincoln  and  my  cousin 
Mary  expected  soon  to  be  married,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  taken  with 
one  of  those  fearful,  overwhelming  periods  of  depression,  which 
induced  his  friends  to  persuade  him  to  leave  Springfield.  This 
he  did  for  a  time ;  but  I  am  satisfied  he  was  loyal  and  true  to  Mary, 
even  though  at  times  he  may  have  doubted  whether  he  was  respond- 
ing as  fully  as  a  manly,  generous  nature  should  to  such  affection 
as  he  knew  my  cousin  was  ready  to  bestow  on  him.  And  this 
because  it  had  not  the  overmastering  depth  of  an  early  love.  This 
everybody  here  knows ;  therefore  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I  were  betraying 
dear  friends." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  176. 

"  I  Do  Not  Believe  a  Word  of  This  Dishonorable  Story!" 

Mrs.  John  Stuart,  the  wife  of  Lincoln's  law  partner  at  that 
time,  is  still  living  (1895)  in  Springfield,  a  refined,  cultivated, 
intelligent  woman,  who  remembers  perfectly  the  life  and  events 
of  that  day.  When  Mr.  Herndon's  story  first  came  to  her  attention, 
her  indignation  was  intense.  She  protested  that  she  had  never 
before  heard  of  such  a  thing.  .  .  .  She  wrote  the  following 
statement'. 

"All  I  can  say  is  that  I  unhesitatingly  do  not  believe  such 
an  event  ever  occurred.  I  thought  I  had  never  heard  of  this  till 
I  saw  it  in  Herndon's  book,  but  I  have  since  been  told  that  Lamon 
mentions  the  same  thing.  I  read  Lamon  at  the  time  he  published, 
and  felt  very  much  disgusted,  but  did  not  remember  this  particular 
assertion.  The  first  chapters  of  Lamon 's  book  were  purchased 
from  Hemdon ;  so  Herndon  is  responsible  for  the  whole. 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY"     .  169 

"Mrs.  Lincoln  told  me  herself  all  the  circumstances  of  her 
engagement  to  Mr,  Lincoln,  of  his  illness,  and  the  breaking  off  of 
her  engagement,  of  the  renewal  and  her  marriage.  So  I  say  I  do 
not  believe  one  word  of  this  dishonorable  story  about  Mr.  Lincoln. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  177. 

"  Not  a  Word  of  Truth  in  It !" 

Another  prominent  member  in  the  same  circle  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  Miss  Todd  is  Mrs.  B.  T.  Edwards,  the  sister-in-law  of  Mr. 
Ninian  Edwards,  who  had  married  Miss  Todd's  sister.  She  came 
to  Springfield  in  1839,  and  was  intimately  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  Miss  Todd,  and  knew,  as  well  as  another  could  know, 
their  affairs.  Mrs.  Edwards  is  still  (1895)  living  in  Springfield,  and 
is  a  woman  of  the  most  perfect  refinement  and  trustworthiness.  In 
answer  to  the  question,  "Is  Mr.  Herndon's  description  true?" 
she  writes : 

"  I  am  impatient  to  tell  you  that  all  he  says  about  this 
wedding — the  time  for  which  was  fixed  for  the  first  day  of  January — 
is  a  fabrication.  He  has  drawn  largely  upon  his  imagination 
in  describing  something  which  never  took  place.  " 

Two  sisters  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  who  are  still  living  (1895),  Mrs. 
Wallace  of  Springfield,  and  Mrs.  Helm  of  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky, 
deny  emphatically  that  any  wedding  was  ever  arranged  between 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  Miss  Todd  but  the  one  which  did  take  place. 

"  There  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it ! "  Mrs.  Wallace  broke  out, 
impulsively,  before  the  question  about  the  non-appearance  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  finished.  "  I  never  was  so  amazed  in  my  life 
as  when  I  read  that  story.     Mr.  Lincoln  never  did  such  a  thing." 

As  Mr.  Joshua  Speed  was,  all  through  this  period,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
closest  friend,  no  thought  or  feeling  of  the  one  ever  being  concealed 
from  the  other,  Mrs.  Joshua  Speed,  who  is  still  living  (1895)  in 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  was  asked  if  she  knew  of  the  story.  Mrs. 
Speed  listened  in  surprise  to  Mr.  Herndon's  tale.  "  I  never  heard 
of  it  before,  "  she  declared.     "  I  never  heard  of  it.  "      .      .      . 

While  the  above  investigation  was  going  on,  a  volunteer  witness 
to  the  falsity  of  the  story  appeared  quite  unexpectedly.  The  Hon. 
H.  W.  Thornton  of  Millersburg,  Illinois,  was  a  memberof  the  Twelfth 
General  Assembly,  which  met  at  Springfield  in  1840.     He  wrote  to 


i^o  •    THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  author  declaring  that  Mr.  Herndon's  statement  about  the  wed- 
ding must  be  false.  .  .  According  to  the  record  taken  from 
the  journals  of  the  House  by  Mr.  Thornton,  and  which  have  been 
verified  in  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  his  seat  in  the  House  on 
that  "fatal  first  of  January,"  when  he  is  asserted  to  have  been  grop- 
ing in  madness,  and  he  was  also  there  on  the  following  day. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  178. 

What  Lincoln  Did  with  his  First  Five-Hundred-Dollar  Fee 

Soon  after  Mr.  Lincoln  entered  upon  his  profession  at  Spring- 
field he  was  engaged  in  a  criminal  case  in  which,  it  was  thought,  there 
was  but  little  chance  of  success.  Throwing  all  his  powers  into  it, 
he  came  off  victorious,  and  promptly  received  for  his  services  five 
hundred  dollars.  A  legal  friend  calling  upon  him  the  next  morning, 
found  him  sitting  before  a  table  upon  which  his  money  was  spread 
out,  counting  it  over  and  over. 

"Look  here,  Judge,"  said  he.  "See  what  a  heap  of  money  I've 
got  from  the  Blank  case.  Did  you  ever  see  anything  like  it  ?  Why, 
I  never  had  so  much  money  in  my  life  before,  put  it  all  together." 
Then,  crossing  his  arms  upon  the  table,  his  manner  sobering  down, 
he  added : 

"I  have  got  just  five  hundred  dollars ;  if  it  were  only  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  I  would  go  directly  and  purchase  a  quarter-section 
of  land,  and  settle  it  upon  my  old  stepmother." 

His  friend  said  that  if  the  deficiency  was  all  he  needed,  he  would 
loan  him  the  amount,  taking  his  note,  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  instantly 
acceded.     His  friend  then  said: 

"Lincoln,  I  would  not  do  just  what  you  have  indicated.  Your 
stepmother  is  getting  old,  and  will  not  probably  live  many  years,  I 
would  settle  the  property  upon  her  for  her  use  during  her  lifetime, 
to  revert  to  you  upon  her  death." 

With  much  feeling,  Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"I  shall  do  no  such  thing.  It  is  a  poor  return  at  best  for  all  the 
good  woman's  devotion  and  fidelity  to  me,  and  there  is  not  going  to 
be  any  half-way  business  about  it." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Paul  Selby,  page  87. 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  171 

A  Successful  Appeal  to  Rustic  Prejudice 

Once,  when  Lincoln  was  pleading  a  case,  the  opposing  lawyer 
had  all  the  advantage  of  the  law ;  the  weather  was  warm  and  his 
opponent,  as  was  admissible  in  frontier  courts,  pulled  off  his  coat 
and  vest  as  he  grew  warm  in  the  argument. 

At  that  time  shirts  with  buttons  behind  were  unusual.  Lincoln 
took  in  the  situation  at  once.  Knowing  the  prejudices  of  the  prim- 
itive people  against  pretension  of  all  sorts,  or  any  affectation  of 
superior  social  rank,  he  arose  and  said: 

"Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  having  justice  on  my  side,  I  don't  think 
you  will  be  at  all  influenced  by  the  gentleman's  pretended  knowl- 
edge of  the  law,  when  you  see  he  does  not  even  know  which  side 
of  his  shirt  should  be  in  front." 

There  was  a  general  laugh,  and  Lincoln's  case  was  won. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  69. 

Logan  &  Lincoln 

Lincoln's  connection  with  Stuart  was  formally  dissolved  in 
April,  1 841,  and  one  with  Logan  formed  which  continued  for  four 
years.  It  may  almost  be  said  that  Lincoln's  practice  as  a  lawyer 
dates  from  this  time .  .  Lincoln,  although  no  longer  in  his  fi/st 
youth,  being  then  thirty-two  years  of  age,  had  not  yet  formed  those 
habits  of  close  application  which  are  indispensable  to  permanent 
success  at  the  bar.  He  was  not  behind  the  greater  part  of  his 
contemporaries  in  this  respect.  Among  all  the  lawyers  of  the  .cir- 
cuit who  were  then,  or  who  afterwards  became,  eminent  practitioners, 
there  were  few  indeed  who  in  those  days  applied  themselves  with 
any  degree  of  persistency  to  the  close  study  of  legal  principles. 
One  of  these  few  w^as  Stephen  T.  Logan . 

Needing  some  one  to  assist  him  in  his  practice,  which  was  then 
considerable,  he  invited  Lincoln  into  partnership .  .  The  partner- 
ship continued  about  four  years,  but  the  benefit  Lincoln  derived 
from  it  lasted  all  his  life ...  He  began  for  the  first  time  to  study 
his  cases  with  energy  and  patience;  to  resist  the  tendency,  almost 
universal  at  that  day,  to  supply  with  florid  rhetoric  the  attorney's 
deficiency  in  law;  in  short,  to  educate,  discipline,  and  train  the 
enormous  faculty,  hitherto  latent  in  him,  for  close  and  severe 
intellectual  labor. 


172  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Logan,  who  had  expected  that  Lincoln's  chief  value  to  him 
would  be  as  a  talking  advocate  before  juries,  was  surprised  to  find 
his  new  partner  rapidly  becoming  a  lawyer. 

"He  would  study  out  his  case  and  make  as  much  of  it  as  any- 
body," said  Logan  many  years  afterwards.  "His  ambition  as  a 
lawyer  increased ;  he  grew  constantly.  By  close  study  of  each  case 
as  it  came  up,  he  got  to  be  quite  a  formidable  lawyer." 

The  character  of  the  man  is  in  these  words.  He  had  vast  con- 
cerns intrusted  to  him  in  the  course  of  his  life,  and  disposed  of  them 
one  at  a  time  as  they  were  presented.  At  the  end  of  four  years  the 
partnership  was  dissolved. 

The  old  partners  continued  close  and  intimate  friends .  .  .  They 
had  the  unusual  honor,  while  they  were  still  comparatively  yotmg 
men,  of  seeing  their  names  indissolubly  associated  in  the  map  of 
their  State  as  a  memorial  to  future  ages  of  their  friendship  and  their 
fame,  in  the  county  of  Logan,  of  which  the  city  of  Lincoln  is  the 
county -seat. 

They  both  prospered,  each  in  his  way,  Logan  rapidly  gained  a 
great  reputation  and  accumulated  an  ample  fortune.  Lincoln, 
while  he  did  not  become  rich,  always  earned  a  respectable  livelihood, 
and  never  knew  the  care  of  poverty  or  debt  from  that  time  forward. 
His  wife  and  he  suited  their  style  of  living  to  their  means,  and  were 
equally  removed  from  luxury  and  privation. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  213. 

"I  Should  Forget  Myself  and  Say  It  out  Loud" 

A  lawyer  who  studied  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  office  tells  a  story  illus- 
trative of  the  tenderness  of  Lincoln's  conscience.  After  listening 
one  day  for  some  time  to  a  client's  statement  of  his  case,  Lincoln, 
who  had  been  staring  at  the  ceiling,  suddenly  swung  round  in  his 
chair  and  said : 

"Well,  you  have  a  pretty  good  case  in  technical  law,  but  a 
pretty  bad  one  in  equity  and  justice.  You'll  have  to  get  some 
other  fellow  to  win  this  case  for  you.  I  couldn't  do  it.  All  the 
time,  while  talking  to  that  jury.  Ld  be  thinking:  'Lincoln,  you're 
a  liar,'  and  I  believe  I  should  forget  myself  and  say  it  out  loud.  " 

Lincolnics,  Henry  LJewellyn  Williams,  page  31, 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY ''  173 

A  Trivial  Background  for  His  Wit 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  from  the  beginning  of  his  circuit  riding  the  light 
and  life  of  the  court.  The  most  trival  circumstance  furnished  a 
background  for  his  wit.  The  following  incident,  which  illustrates 
his  love  of  a  joke,  occurred  in  the  early  days  of  our  acquaintance. 
I,  being  at  the  time  on  the  infant  side  of  twenty-one,  took  particular 
I  pleasure  in  athletic  sports.  One  day  when  we  were  attending  the 
circuit  court  which  met  at  Bloomington,  Illinois,  I  was  wrestling 
near  the  court-house  with  some  one  who  had  challenged  me  to  a 
trial,  and  in  the  scuffle  made  a  large  rent  in  the  rear  of  my  trousers. 
Before  I  had  time  to  make  any  change  I  was  called  into  court  to 
take  up  a  case.  The  evidence  was  finished.  I  being  the  Prosecuting 
Attorney  at  the  time,  got  up  to  address  the  jury.  Having  on  a  short 
coat  my  misfortune  was  rather  apparent. 

One  of  the  lawyers,  for  a  joke,  started  a  subscription  paper, 
which  was  passed  from  one  member  of  the  bar  to  another  as  they 
sat  by  a  long  table  fronting  the  bench,  to  buy  a  pair  of  pantaloons 
for  Lamon, — he  being,  the  paper  said,  "a  poor  but  worthy  young 
man."  Several  put  down  their  names  with  some  ridiculous  sub- 
scription, and  finally  the  paper  was  laid  by  some  one  in  front  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  he '  being  engaged  in  writing  at  the  time.  He  quietly 
glanced  over  the  paper,  and,  immediately  taking  up  his  pen,  wrote 
after  his  name, 

"I  can  contribute  nothing  to  the  end  in  view!" 

Recollections  of  Abrahain  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  i6. 

Charity  in  Temperance  Reform 

Closing  extracts  from  Lincoln's  address  before  the  Washington- 
ian  Society  of  Springfield.  Illinois,  February  22,  1842: 

.  "There  is  something  so  ludicrous  in  promises  of  good 
or  threats  of  evil  a  great  way  off  as  to  render  the  whole  subject  with 
which  they  are  connected  easily  turned  into  ridicule. 

"Better  lay  down  that  spade  you  are  stealing,  Paddy;  if  you 
don't  you'll  pay  for  it  at  the  day  of  judgment." 

"  'Be  the  powers,  if  ye'll  credit  me  so  long  I'll  take  another, 
jist.' 

"By  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  consigning  the  habitual 
drunkard  to   hopeless   ruin   is   repudiated.     They   adopt   a  more 


174  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

enlarged  philanthropy ;  they  go  for  present  as  well  as  future  good. 
They  labor  for  all  now  living,  as  well  as  hereafter  to  live. 

"Of  our  political  revolution  of  '76  we  are  all  justly  proud.  It 
has  given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom  far  exceeding  that  of  any 
other  nation  of  the  earth.  In  it  the  world  has  found  a  solution  of 
the  long-mooted  problem  as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  him- 
self. In  it  was  the  germ  which  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow 
and  expand  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind.  But,  with  all 
these  glorious  results,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  it  had  its  evils  too. 
It  breathed  forth  famine,  swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire ;  and  long, 
long  after,  the  orphan's  cry  and  the  widow's  wail  continued  to  break 
the  sad  silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the  price,  the  inevitable 
price,  paid  for  the  blessings  it  brought. 

"Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we  shall  find 
a  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler  slavery  manumitted,  a  greater 
tyrant  deposed ;  in  it  more  of  want  supplied,  more  disease  healed, 
more  sorrow  assuaged.  By  it  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows 
weeping.  By  it,  none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest; 
even  the  dram-maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into  other 
occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt  the  change,  and  will 
stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in  the  universal  song  of  gladness. 

'  'And  what  a  noble  ally  this  to  the  cause  of  political  freedom ; 
with  such  an  aid  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on ;  till  every 
son  of  earth  shall  drink  in  rich  fruition  the  sorrow-quenching  draught 
of  perfect  liberty .... 

"And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete — ^when  there  shall  be 
neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the  earth, — how  proud  the  title  of 
that  land  which  may  truly  claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and  the  cradle 
of  both  those  revolutions  that  have  ended  in  that  victory .... 

"This  is  the  one  hundred  and  tenth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of 
Washington ;  we  are  met  to  celebrate  this  day.  Washington  is  the 
mightiest  name  of  earth,  long  since  the  mightiest  in  the  cause  of 
civil  liberty,  still  mightiest  in  moral  reformation.  On  that  name 
no  eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be.  To  add  brightness  to  the 
sun  or  glory  to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike  impossible.  Let 
none  attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  we  pronounce  the  name,  and  in 
its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it  shining  on." 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  page  80. 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY''  175 

"Rebecca"  of  the  "Lost  Townships" 

An  incident  which  occurred  during  the  summer  preceding  Mr. 
Lincoln's  marriage,  and  which  in  the  opinion  of  many  had  its  influ- 
ence in  hastening  that  event,  deserves  some  attention,  if  only  from 
its  incongruity  with  the  rest  of  his  history.  This  was  the  farce — 
which  aspired  at  one  time  to  be  a  tragedy — of  his  first  and  last  duel. 
Among  the  officers  of  the  State  Government  was  a  young  Irishman 
named  James  Shields,  who  owed  his  post  as  Auditor,  in  a  great 
measure,  to  that  alien  vote  to  gain  which  the  Democrats  had  over- 
turned the  Supreme  Court.  The  finances  of  the  State  were  in  a 
deplorable  condition,  the  treasury  was  empty;  auditor's  warrants 
were  selling  at  half  their  nominal  value.  .  The  currency  of  the 
State  banks  was  well-nigh  worthless,  but  it  constituted  nearly  the 
only  circulating  medium  in  the  State. 

In  the  middle  of  August  the  Governor,  Auditor  and  Treasurer 
issued  a  circular  forbidding  the  payment  of  State  taxes  in  this 
depreciated  paper.  This  order  was  naturally  taken  by  the  Whigs 
as  indicating  on  the  part  of  these  officers  a  keener  interest  in  the 
integrity  of  their  salaries  than  in  the  public  welfare,  and  it  was 
therefore  severely  attacked  in  all  the  opposition  newspapers  of  the 
State. 

The  sharpest  assault  it  had  to  endure,  however,  was  in  a  com- 
munication, dated  August  27,  and  printed  in  the  Sangamon  Journal 
of  September  2 ,  not  only  dissecting  the  administration  circular  with 
the  most  savage  satire,  but  covering  the  Auditor  with  merciless 
personal  ridicule.  It  was  written  in  the  dialect  of  the  country, 
dated  from  the  "Lost  Townships,"  and  signed  "Rebecca,"  and 
purported  to  come  from  a  farmer  widow  of  the  county,  who  ex- 
pressed in  this  fashion  her  discontent  with  the  evil  course  of  affairs. 

Shields  was  a  man  of  inordinate  vanity  and  a  corresponding 
irascibility.  He  was  for  that  reason  an  irresistible  mark  for  satire. 
Through  a  long  life  of  somewhat  conspicuous  public  service,  he 
never  lost  a  certain  tone  of  absurdity .  .  .  Even  his  honorable 
wounds  in  battle,  while  they  were  productive  of  great  public  ap- 
plause and  political  success,  gained  him  scarcely  less  ridicule  than 
praise.  He  never  could  refrain  from  talking  of  them  himself.  .  . 
and  for  that  reason  he  was  a  constant  target  for  newspaper  wits .    . 

His  fury  against  the  imknown  author  of  the  satire  was  the 


176  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

subject  of  much  merriment  in  Springfield,  and  the  next  week 
another  letter  appeared,  from  a  different  hand,  but  adopting  the 
machinery  of  the  first,  in  which  the  widow  offered  to  make  up  the 
quarrel  by  marrying  the  Auditor,  and  this  .  .  happy  com- 
promise was  forthwith  celebrated  in  very  bad  verses.  In  the  change 
of  hands  all  the  humor  of  the  thing  had  evaporated,  and  nothing 
'  was  left  but  feminine  mischief  on  one  side  and  the  exasperation  of 
wounded  vanity  on  the  other. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  203. 

An  Absurd  Duel  Avoided 

Shields,  however,  had  talked  so  much  about  the  matter  that 
he  now  felt  imperatively  called  upon  to  act,  and  therefore  he  sen1 
General  Whitesides  to  demand  from  the  Journal  the  name  of  ita 
contributor.  Mr.  Francis,  the  editor,  was  in  a  quandary.  Lincoln 
had  written  the  first  letter,  and  the  antic  fury  of  Shields  had  induced 
two  young  ladies  who  took  a  lively  interest  in  Illinois  politics 
to  follow  up  the  game  with  attacks  in  prose  and  verse,  which,  how- 
ever deficient  in  wit  and  meter,  were  not  wanting  in   pungency. 

In  his  dilemma  he  applied  to  Lincoln,  who,  as  he  was  starting 
to  attend  court  at  Tremont,  told  him  to  give  his  name  and  withhold 
the  names  of  the  ladies.  As  soon  as  Whitesides  received  this  infor- 
mation, he  and  his  fiery  principal  set  out  for  Tremont,  and  as  Shields 
did  nothing  in  silence,  the  news  came  to  Lincoln's  friends;  two  of 
them,  William  Butler  and  Dr.  Merryman,  went  off  in  a  buggy 

in  pursuit.  They  soon  came  in  sight  of  the  others,  but  loitered  in 
the  rear  until  evening  and  then  drove  rapidly  to  Tremont,  arriving 
there  some  time  in  advance  of  Shields;  so  that  in  the  ensuing 
negotiations  Abraham  Lincoln  had  the  assistance  of  friends  whose 
fidelity  and  whose  nerve  were  equally  beyond  question. 

It  would  be  useless  to  recount  all  the  tedious  preliminaries  of 
the  affair.  Shields  opened  the  correspondence  .  .  .  with  bluster- 
ling  and  with  threats;  his  nature  had  no  other  way  of  expressing 
itself.  His  first  letter  was  taken  as  a  bar  to  any  explanation  or 
understanding,  and  he  afterw^ards  wrote  a  second,  a  little  less  offen- 
sive in  tone,  but  without  withdrawing  the  first .  .  The  par- 
ties, after  endless  talk,  went  to  Alton  and  crossed  the  river  to  the 
Missouri  shore. 

It  seemed  for  a  moment  that  the  fight  must  take  place.     The 


''THE  LAW  AND  THE  LADY"  177 

terms  had  been  left  by  the  code,  as  then  understood  in  the  West,  to 
Lincoln,  and  he  certainly  made  no  grudging  use  of  his  privilege. 
The  weapons  chosen  were  "cavalry  broadswords  of  the  largest  size;" 
and  the  combatants  were  to  stand  on  either  side  of  a  board  placed 
on  the  ground,  each  to  fight  in  a  limit  of  six  feet  on  his  own  side  of 
the  board.  It  was  evident  that  Lincoln  did  not  desire  the  death  of 
his  adversary,  and  did  not  intend  to  be  materially  injured  himself. 
The  advantage  morally  was  altogether  against  him.  He  felt  keenly 
the  stupidity  of  the  whole  affair,  but  thought  he  could  not  avoid  the 
fight  without  degradation;  while  to  Shields  such  a  fracas  was  a 
delight. 

The  duel  came  to  its  natural  end .  .  Shields  allowed  himself 
to  be  persuaded  to  withdraw  his  offensive  challenge.  Lincoln  then 
made  the  explanation  he  had  been  ready  to  make  from  the  beginning : 
avowing  the  one  letter  he  had  written,  and  saying  that  it  had  been 
printed  solely  for  political  effect,  and  without  any  intention  of 
injuring  Shields  personally. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  205. 

[The  second  "Rebecca"  letter  was  written  by  Mary  Todd  and 
a  girl  friend,  Julia  Jayne. — W.  W.] 

Had  Not  the  Slightest  Intention  of  Injuring  Shields 

Mr.  Lincoln  felt  afterwards  that  he  could  have  done,  under  the 
circumstances,  no  less  than  he  did.  He  stated  to  a  friend,  how- 
ever, that  he  selected  broadswords  because  his  arms  were  long. 
He  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  injuring  Mr.  Shields,  and 
thought  that  the  length  of  his  arms  would  aid  him  in  defending  his 
own  person. 

This  incident  does  not  seem,  to  have  been  remembered  against 
Mr.  Lincoln  by  any  class  of  the  community  in  which  he  lived.  It 
was  certainly  a  boyish  affair,  and  was  probably  regarded  and  for- 
gotten as  such.  Even  the  excitements  of  a  great  political  campaign 
did  not  call  it  from  its  slumbers,  and  the  American  people  were 
spared  a  representation  of  Mr.   Lincoln's  atrocities  as  a  duelist. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  89. 

"Killing  the  Dog  Would  Not  Cure  the  Bite" 

Lincoln's  quarrel  with  Shields  was  his  last  personal  encounter. 
In  later  years  it  became  his  duty  to  give  an  official  reprimand  to  a 


178  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

young  officer  who  had  been  court-martialed  for  a  quarrel  with  one 
of  his  associates.  The  reprimand  was  probably  the  gentlest  on 
record : 

"Quarrel  not  at  all.  No  man  resolved  to  make  the  most  of 
himself  can  spare  time  for  personal  contention.  Still  less  can  he 
afford  to  take  all  the  consequences,  including  the  vitiating  of  his 
temper  and  the  loss  of  self-control.  Yield  larger  things  to  which 
you  can  show  no  more  than  equal  right;  and  yield  lesser  ones, 
though  clearly  your  own. 

"Better  give  your  path  to  a  dog  than  be  bitten  by  him  in  con. 
testing  for  the  right.     Even  killing  the  dog  would  not  cure  the  bite." 

"Abe"  Lhwolns  Yarns  and  Stories.  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  2io. 

Married,  after  Misunderstandings 

In  1842,  having  arrived  at  his  thirty -third  year,  Mr.  Lincoln 
married  Miss  Mary  Todd,  a  daughter  of  Hon.  Robert  S.  Todd  of 
Lexington,  Kentucky.  The  marriage  took  place  in  Springfield, 
where  the  lady  had  for  several  years  resided,  on  the  fourth  of  Novem- 
ber of  the  year  mentioned.  It  is  probable  that  he  married  as  early 
as  the  circumstances  of  his  life  permitted,  for  he  had  always  loved 
the  society  of  women,  and  possessed  a  nature  that  took  profound 
delight  in  intimate  female  companionship. 

A  letter  written  on  the  eighteenth  of  May  following  his  marriage, 
to  J.  F.  Speed,  Esq.,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  an  early  and  life-long 
personal  friend,  gives  a  pleasant  glimpse  of  his  domestic  arrange- 
ments at  this  time : 

"We  are  not  keeping  house, "Mr.  Lincoln  says  in  this  letter,  "but 
boarding  at  the  Globe  Tavern,  which  is  very  well  kept  now  by  a 
widow  lady  of  the  name  of  Beck.  Our  rooms  are  now  the  same 
Dr.  Wallace  occupied  there,  and  boarding  only  costs  four  dollars 
a  week ...  I  most  heartily  wish  you  and  your  family  will  not 
fail  to  come.  Just  let  us  know  the  time,  a  week  in  advance,  and  we 
will  have  a  room  prepared  for  you,  and  will  all  be  merry  together 
for  a  while." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  90. 

"The  Statute  Fixes  All  That !" 

Lincoln's .  .  ,  was  the  first  wedding  performed  with  all  the 
Qercmony  of  the  Episcopalian  sect.     Tljis  was  to  the  ^we  of  th§ 


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i8o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Honorable  Judge  Tom  C.  Brown,  an  old  man  and  friend  and  patron 
of  Abraham.  He  watched  the  ecclesiastical  functionary  to  the 
point  of  Lincoln's  placing  the  ring  on  the  bride's  finger.  When 
Lincoln  repeated: 

"With  this  ring  I  thee  wed  and  with  my  worldly  goods  I  thee 
endow,"  the  irate  old  stager  exclaimed: 

"Grace  to  Goshen!  Lincoln,  the  statute  fixes  all  that!'' 

The  Lincoln  Story  Book,  Henry  L.  Williams,  page  45. 

"His  Heart  Is  as  Large  as  His  Arms  Are  Long  " 

After  the  Lincolns'  marriage,  by  dint  of  untiring  efforts  and  the 
recognition  of  influential  friends,  the  couple  managed,  through  rare 
frugality,  to  move  along.  In  Lincoln's  struggles,  both  in  law  and 
for  political  advancement,  his  wife  shared  his  sacrifices.  She  was 
a  plucky  little  woman  and,  in  fact,  endowed  with  a  more  restless 
ambition  than  he.  She  was  gifted  with  a  rare  insight  into  the 
motives  that  actuate  mankind,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  Lincoln's 
success  was,  in  a  measure,  attributable  to  her  acuteness  and  the 
stimulus  of  her  influence. 

His  election  to  Congress  within  four  years  after  their  marriage 
afforded  her  extreme  gratification.  She  loved  power  and  promi- 
nence, and  was  inordinately  proud  of  her  tall,  ungainly  husband. 
She  saw  in  him  bright  prospects  ahead,  and  his  every  move  was 
watched  by  her  with  the  closest  interest.  If  to  other  persons  he 
seemed  homely,  to  her  he  was  the  embodiment  of  noble  manhood, 
and  each  succeeding  day  impressed  upon  her  the  wisdom  of  her 
choice  of  Lincoln  over  Douglas — if  in  reality  she  ever  seriously 
accepted  the  latter's  attentions. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  may  not  be  as  handsome  a  figure, "  she  said  one 
day  in  Lincoln's  office  during  her  husband's  absence,  when  the  con- 
versation turned  on  Douglas,  "  but  people  are  perhaps  not  aware 
that  his  heart  is  as  large  as  his  arms  are  long. " 

The  Story  of  Lincoln  s  Life,  in"Ahe''  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure, 
page  510. 


CHAPTER  VII 

In  Politics  and  Congress 

Lincoln  Declines  Support  for  Governor  of  Illinois 

For  eight  successive  years  Lincoln  had  been  a  member  of  the 
General  Assembly  of  Illinois.  It  was  quite  long  enough,  in  his 
judgment,  and  his  friends  seem  to  have  wanted  to  give  him  some- 
thing better,  for  in  1 84 1  they  offered  to  support  him  for  Governor 
of  the  State.  This,  however,  he  refused.  His  ambition  was  to  go 
to  Washington.  In  1842  he  declined  renomination  for  the  assembly 
and  became  a  candidate  for  Congress.  He  did  not  wait  to  be  asked, 
nor  did  he  leave  his  case  in  the  hands  of  his  friends.  He  frankly 
announced  his  desire,  and  managed  his  own  canvass.  There  was  no 
reason,  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  opinion,  for  concealing  political  ambition. 
He  recognized,  at  the  same  time,  the  legitimacy  of  the  ambition  of 
his  friends,  and  entertained  no  suspicion  or  rancor  if  they  contested 
places  with  him 

The  Whigs  of  the  various  counties  in  the  Congressional  Dis- 
trict met  on  April  5,  as  they  had  been  instructed  to  do,  and  chose 
delegates.  John  J.  Hardin  of  Jacksonville,  Edward  D.  Baker  and 
Abraham  Lincoln  of  Springfield,  were  three  candidates  for  whom 
these  delegates  were  instructed. 

To  Lincoln's  keen  disappointment,  the  delegation  from  Sanga- 
mon County  was  instructed  for  Baker.  A  variety  of  social  and  per- 
sonal influences,  besides  Baker's  popularity,  worked  against  Lincoln. 

"It  would  astonish,  if  not  amuse,  the  older  citizens,"  wrote 
Lincoln  to  a  friend,  "to  learn  that  I .  .  .  have  been  put  down  here 
as  the  candidate  of  pride,  wealth  and  aristocratic  family  distinction." 

He  was  not  only  accused  of  being  an  aristocrat,  he  was  called  a 
"deist."  He  had  fought,  or  been  about  to  fight,  a  duel.  His  wife's 
relations  were  Episcopalian  and  Presbyterian .    .    . 

The  meeting  that  named  Baker  as  its  choice  for  Congress 
appointed  Lincoln  one  of  the  delegates  to  the  convention. 

"In  getting  Baker  the  nomination,"  Lincoln  wrote  to  Speed,  "I 

(181)  _ 


l82 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


shall  be  fixed  a  good  deal  like  a  fellow  who  is  made  a  groomsman  to  a 
man  that  has  cut  him  out,  and  is  marrying  his  own  dear  'gal,'  " 

From  the  first,  however,  he  stood  bravely  by  Baker. 

"I  feel  myself  bound  not  to  hinder  him  in  any  way  from  getting 
the  nomination ;  I  should  despise  myself  were  I  to  attempt  it." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  192. 

Makmg  Van  Buren  Laugh  "Till  His  Sides  Were  Sore" 

Since  1840  Lincoln  had  given  less  attention  to  politics  than  to 
law  practice.     His  partnership  with  Judge  Logan — who  also  had 

Congressional  aspira- 
tions— was  compara- 
tively brief.  A  new 
one  was  formed  with  a 
younger  man,  whom  he 
had  known  as  a  clerk  in 
Mr.  Speed's  store,  and 
who  had  now  been  re- 
cently admitted  to  the 
bar,  Mr.  William  H, 
Herndon,  who  was 
especially  serviceable  in 
regard  to  ofhce  work, 
the  senior  (Lincoln) 
assuming  the  chief 
labors  of  the  court- 
room. 

Members  of  Congress 
were  to  be    elected  in 
1844,  but   Lincoln  was 
not  now  a  candidate  for 
the   nomination.     He 
gave  way  to  his  friend, 
Edward    D.    Baker,   as 
did  also  Colonel  Hardin. 
Clay     had      a     clear 
field  this  year  for  the  Presidential  nomination.     The  friends  of  ex- 
President  Van  Buren  had  been  hoping  for  a  like  unanimity  in  his 


MARTIN  VAN  BUREN 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  183 

favor  on  the  Democratic  side.     He  made  a  tour  through  the  West, 
of  which  Mr.  Speed  recalled  an  incident  not  out  of  place  here : 

"In  1843,  when  Mr.  Van  Buren  and  Commodore  Paulding 
visited  the  West,  and  gave  out  that  they  would  reach  Springfield  on 
a  certain  day,  but  their  friends  knew  from  the  condition  of  the  roads 
that  their  expectations  would  not  be  realized,  a  party  was  formed, 
and  Lincoln,  though  not  of  their  politics,  was  pressed  into  the 
service. 

"They  met  Van  Buren  and  his  party  at  Rochester,  in  Sangamon 

County,  in  an  old  barn  of  a  hotel.     Lincoln  was  charged  to  do  his 

best  to  entertain  the  distinguished  guests.     Well  did  he  do  his  part. 

He  soon  got  under  way,  and  kept  the  company  convulsed 

with  laughter  till  the  small  hours  of  the  night. 

"Mr.  Van  Buren  stayed  some  days  in  Springfield,  and  repeatedly 
said  he  never  spent  so  agreeable  a  night  in  his  life.  He  complained 
that  his  sides  were  sore  with  laughter,  and  to  more  than  one  pre- 
dicted for  that  young  man  a  brilliant  future." 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  78. 

Visits  Indiana  Home  Making  Speeches  for  Clay 

Lincoln  also  supported  Hardin  energetically  in  the  campaign 
which  followed.  .  .  .  He  was  true  to  his  promise  and  after  Hardin 
was  elected  and  in  Washington  he  kept  him  informed  of  much  that 
went  on  in  the  district ;  thus  in  an  amusing  letter,  written  in  May, 
1 844,  while  the  latter  was  in  Congress,  he  tells  of  one  disgruntled  con- 
stituent who  must  be  pacified,  giving  him,  at  the  same  time,  a  hint 
as  to  the  temper  of  the  "  Locofocos." 

The  resolution  passed  at  the  Pekin  convention  in  1843  was 
remembered  and  respected  by  the  Whigs  when  the  time  came  to 
nominate  Hardin's  successor.  Baker  was  selected  and  elected,  Lin- 
coln working  for  him  as  loyally  as  he  had  for  Hardin.  In  this 
campaign — that  of  1844 — Lincoln  was  a  presidential  elector.  He 
went  through  the  canvass  with  unusual  ardor,  for  Henry  Clay  was 
the  candidate,  and  Lincoln  shared  the  popular  idolatry  of  the  man. 
His  devotion  was  not  merely  a  sentiment,  however.  He  had  been 
an  intelligent  student  of  Clay's  public  life,  and  his  sympathy  was 
all  with  the  principles  of  the  "gallant  Harry  of  the  West."  ..... 

Lincoln's  speeches  at  this  time  were  not  confined  to  his  own 


i84  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

State.  He  made  several  in  Indiana,  being  invited  thither  by  prom- 
inent Whig  politicians  who  had  heard  him  speak  in  Illinois 

One  was  delivered  at  Rockport;  another  "from  the  door  of  a 
harness  shop"  near  Gentryville,  Lincoln's  old  home  in  Indiana;  and 
a  third  at  the  "Old  Carter  School"  in  the  same  neighborhood.  At 
the  delivery  of  the  last  many  of  Lincoln's  old  neighbors  were  present 
and  they  still  tell  of  the  cordial  way  in  which  he  greeted  them  and 
inquired  for  old  friends.  After  his  speech  he  drove  home  with  Mr. 
Josiah  Crawford,  for  whom  he  had  once  worked  as  a  day  laborer. 

His  interest  in  every  familiar  spot — a  saw-pit  where  he  had  once 
worked — the  old  swimming  pool,  the  town  grocery,  the  mill,  the 
blacksmith  shop,  surprised  and  flattered  everybody. 

"He  went  round  inspecting  everything,"  declares  one  of  his 
hosts.  So  vivid  were  the  memories  which  this  visit  of  Gentryville 
aroused,  so  deep  were  Lincoln's  emotions,  that  he  even  attempted 
to  express  them  in  verse . 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  196. 

I 

Lincoln's  Verses  about  His  Old  Home 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  very  long  original  poem 
written  by  Lincoln  in  1 844  while  on  a  visit  to  the  home  of  his  child- 
hood : 

My  childhood's  home  I  see  again 

And  sadden  with  the  view ; 
And  still,  as  memory  crowds  the  brain, 

There's  pleasure  in  it  too. 

Ah,  Memory !  thou  midway  world, 

'Twixt  earth  and  Paradise, 
Where  things  decayed  and  loved  ones  lost 

In  dreamy  shadows  rise. 

And  freed  from  all  that's  earthy,  vile, 
Seems  hallow^ed,  pure  and  bright, 

Like  scenes  in  some  enchanted  isle 
All  bathed  in  liquid  light. 

Whtnowings  for  Lincoln's  Birthday,  Agnes  Mawson,  page  87,  note  26. 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  185 


Elected  to  Congress 

In  this  campaign  of  1844  Lincoln  for  the  second  time  in  his 
poUtical  life  met  the  slavery  question.  .  .  The  next  year,  1845, 
found  the  abolition  sentiment  stronger  than  ever ...  In  January 
[1846]  General  Hardin  suggested  that  since  he  and  Lincoln  were 
the  only  persons  mentioned  as  candidates,  there  should  he  no  con- 
vention, but  the  selection  be  left  to  the  Whig  voters  pf  the  district. 
Lincoln  refused.    . 

After  General  Hardin  received  this  refusal  he  withdrew  from 
the  contest,  in  a  manly  and  generous  letter  which  was  warmly  ap- 
proved by  the  Whigs  of  the  district.  Both  men  were  so  much 
loved  that  a  break  between  them  would  have  been  a  disastrous  thing 
for  the  party 

In  May,  Lincoln  was  nominated.  His  Dem- 
ocratic opponent  was  Peter  Cartwright,  the 
famous  Methodist  exhorter,  the  most  famous 

itinerant  preacher  of  the  pioneer  era 

Cartwright  now  made  an  energetic  canvass,  his 
chief  weapon  against  Lincoln  being  the  old 
charges  of  atheism  and  aristocracy;  but  they 
failed  of  effect,  and  in  August,  Lincoln  was 
elected. 

The  contest  over,  sudden  and  characteristic  ^^^^^  cartwright 
disillusion  seized  him.  _  .    ..v   ,      a 

The     great     "  backwoods 

"Being;  elected  to  Congress,  though  I  am        preacher."  defeated  by 

°  .Y.  .-  Lincoln  for  Congress. 

grateful  to  our  friends  for  having  done  it,  has 

not  pleased  me  as  much  as  I  expected,"  he  wrote  Speed. 

The  LUe  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  199. 

"  He  Can  Compress  the  Most  Words  into  the  Smallest  Ideas  " 

Lincoln's   humor  generally  freed  his  criticisms  of  all  offense. 

"  He  can  compress  the  most  words  into  the  smallest  ideas  of 
any  man  I  ever  met,"  was  perhaps  the  severest  retort  he  ever 
uttered;  but  history  has  considerately  sheltered  the  identity  of 
the  victim. 

LifKoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  218. 


iS6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  to  the  House  and  Douglas  to  the  Senate,  Each  for  the  First  Time 

Before  Lincoln's  departure  for  Washington  to  enter  on  his 
duties  as  a  member  of  Congress,  the  Mexican  War  had  begun. 
The  volunteers  had  gone  forward,  and  at  the  head  of  the  regiments 
from  Illinois  some  of  the  bravest  men  and  best  legal  talent  in  Spring- 
field had  marched.  Hardin,  Baker,  Bissell,  and  even  the  dramatic 
Shields  had  enlisted.  The  issues  of  the  war  and  the  manner  of  its 
prosecution  were  in  every  man's  mouth.  Naturally,  therefore,  a 
Congressman-electwould  be  expected  to  publish  his  views  and  define 
his  position  early  in  the  day. 

Although,  in  common  with  the  Whig  party,  opposing  the  decla- 
ration of  war,  Lincoln,  now  that  hostilities  had  commenced,  urged  a 
vigorous  prosecution .  .  .  He  was  the  only  Whig  from  Illinois .  .  . 
In  the  Senate,  Douglas  had  made  his  appearance  for  the  first  time .  . 
Robert  C.  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  was  chosen  Speaker.  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Horace  Mann,  Caleb  Smith,  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
Robert  Toombs,  Howell  Cobb,  and  Andrew  Johnson  were  important 
members  of  the  House. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  260. 

Autobiography  for  the  Congressional  Directory 

Among  the  papers  of  the  late  Charles  Lanman  there  is  a  sketch 
of  Mr.  Lincoln,  written  in  his  own  hand.  Mr.  Lanman  was  editor 
of  the  Congressional  Directory  at  the  time  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
elected  to  Congress,  and,  according  to  the  ordinary  custom,  for- 
warded to  him,  as  well  as  to  all  other  members  elect,  a  blank  to  be 
filled  out  with  facts  and  dates  which  might  be  made  the  basis  for  a 
biographical  sketch  in  the  Directory.  Lincoln's  blank  was  promptly 
filled  up  in  his  own  handwriting,  with  the  following  information: 

"Born  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 

"  Education  defective. 

"Profession,  lawyer. 

"Military  service.  Captain  of  Volunteers  in  Black  Hawk  War. 

"  Offices  held :  Postmaster  at  a  very  small  office ;  four  times  a 
member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature,  and  elected  to  the  Lower  House 
of  the  next  Congress.  " 

The  True  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  Eleroy  Curtis,  page  59. 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS 


187 


Lincoln's  Visit  to  Henry  Clay   at  Ashland 

In  1846,  Mr.  Lincoln  learned  that  Mr.  Clay  had  agreed  to  deliver 
a  speech  at  Lexington,  Kentucky,  in  favor  of  gradual  emancipation. 
He  had  never  seen  the  great  Kentuckian,  and  this  event  seemed  to 
give  him  an  excuse  for  breaking  away  from  his  business,  and  satisfy- 
ing his  curiosity  to 
look  his  demigod  in 
the  face,  and  hear 
the  music  of  his  elo- 
quence. He  accord- 
ingly went  to  Lex- 
ington, and  arrived 
there  in  time  to  at- 
tend the  nieeting. 

On  returning  to 
his  home  from  this 
visit,  he  did  not  at- 
tempt to  disguise 
his  disappointment. 
The  speech  itself 
w^as  written  and 
read.  It  lacked 
entirely  the  spon- 
taneity and  fire 
which  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  anticipated,  and 
was  not  eloquent  at 
all.  At  the  close  of 
the  meeting  Mr. 
Lincoln  secured  an 
introduction  to  the 
great  orator,  and  as 
Mr.  Clay  knew  what 
a  friend  to  him  Mr. 

Lincoln  had  been,  he  invited  his  admirer  and  partizan  to  Ashland. 
No  invitation  could  have  delighted  Mr.  Lincoln  more,  but  the  result 
of  his  private  interview  with  Mr.  Clay  was  no  more  satisfactory 
than  that  which  followed  the  speech.    Those  who  have  known 


HENRY  CLAY 


1 88  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

both  men  will  not  wonder  at  this,  for  two  men  could  hardly  be 
more  unlike  in  their  motives  and  manners  than  the  two  thus 
brought  together.  One  was  a  proud  man ;  the  other  was  a  humble 
man.  ,  .  .  One  was  distant  and  dignified  and  the  other  was  as 
simple  and  teachable  as  a  child 

A  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  a  long  conversation  with  him 
after  his  return  from  Ashland,  found  that  his  old  enthusiasm  was 
gone.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  though  Mr.  Clay  was  most  polished  in 
his  manners,  and  very  hospitable,  he  betrayed  a  consciousness  of 
superiority  that  none  could  mistake.  He  felt  that  Mr.  Clay  did  not 
regard  him,  or  any  other  person  in  his  presence,  as,  in  any  sense,  on  an 
equality  with  him.  In  short,  he  thought  that  Mr.  Clay  was  over- 
bearing and  domineering,  and  that,  while  he  was  apparently  kind,  it 
was  in  that  magnificent  and  patronizing  way  which  made  a  sensi- 
tive man  uncomfortable. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  Mr.  Lincoln  needed  to  experience  this 
disappointment,  and  to  be  taught  this  lesson.  It  was,  perhaps, 
the  only  instance  in  his  life  in  which  he  had  given  his  whole  heart 

to  a  man  without  knowing  him He  was,  certainly,  from 

that  time  forward,  more  careful  to  look  on  all  sides  of  a  man,  and 
on  all  sides  of  a  subject,  before  yielding  to  either  his  devotion. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  95. 

"  A  Man  Who  Has  No  Vices  Has  Blamed  Few  Virtues" 

Lincoln  set  out  for  Washington  from  Ramsdell's  Tavern  in 
Springfield  early  in  the  morning.  The  only  other  passenger  in  the 
stage  for  a  good  portion  of  the  distance  was  a  Kentuckian,  on  his 
way  home  from  Missouri.  Painfully  impressed,  no  doubt,  with 
Lincoln's  gravity  and  melancholy,  he  undertook  to  relieve  the 
general  monotony  of  the  ride  by  offering  him  a  chew  of  tobacco. 
With  a  plain, 

"No,  sir,  thank  you;  I  never  chew,"  Lincoln  declined,  and  a 
long  period  of  silence  followed. 

Later  in  the  day  the  stranger,  pulling  from  his  pocket  a  leather- 
covered  case,  offered  Lincoln  a  cigar,  whioh  he  also  politely  declined 
on  the  ground  that  he  never  smoked. 

Finally,  as  they  neared  the  station  where  the  horses  were  to 
be  changed,  the  Kentuckian,  pouring  out  a  cup  of  brandy  from  a 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  189 

flask  which  had  lain  concealed  in  his  satchel,  offered  it  to  Lincoln 
with  the  remark, 

"Well,  stranger,  seeing  you  don't  smoke  or  chew,  perhaps 
you'll  take  a  little  of  this  French  brandy.  It's  a  fine  article  and  a 
good  appetizer  besides." 

His  tall  and  uncommunicative  companion  declined  this  last 
and  best  evidence  of  Kentucky  hospitality  on  the  same  ground  as- 
the  tobacco.  When  they  separated  that  afternoon,  the  Kentuck- 
ian,  transferring  to  another  stage,  bound  for  Louisville,  shook 
Lincoln  warmly  by  the  hand.  "See  here,  stranger,"  he  said,  good- 
humoredly,  "you're  a  clever,  but  strange  companion.  I  may  never 
see  you  again,  and  I  don't  want  to  offend  you,  but  I  want  to  say  this : 
My  experience  has  taught  me  that  a  man  who  has  no  vices  has 
blamed  few  virtues.     Good-day." 

Lincoln  enjoyed  this  reminiscence  of  the  journey,  and  took  great 
pleasure  in  relating  it. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  302. 

Congressman  Lincoln's  Bill  Which  Never  Came  to  a  Vote 

During  the  first  session  of  his  term  Lincoln  made  three  long 
speeches  carefully  prepared  and  written  out  beforehand.     He  was 

neither  elated  nor  dismayed  at  the  result The  next 

year  he  made  no  set  speeches,  but  in  addition  to  the  usual  work  of  a 
congressman,  occupied  himself  with  a  bill  that  had  for  its  object  the 
purchase  and  freeing  of  all  the  slaves  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Slavery  was  not  only  lawful  in  the  national  capital  at  that  time, 
but  there  was,  to  quote  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  graphic  w^ords, 

"In  view  from  the  windows  of  the  Capitol,  a  sort  of  negro  livery- 
stable,  where  droves  of  negroes  were  collected,  temporarily  kept, 
and  finally  taken  to  Southern  markets,  precisely  like  droves  of 
horses." 

To  Lincoln  and  to  other  people  who  disapproved  of  slavery, 
the  idea  of  human  beings  held  in  bondage  under  the  very  shadow  of 
the  dome  of  the  Capitol  seemed  indeed  a  bitter  mockery.  .  .  .  He 
did  not  then  believe  Congress  had  the  right  to  interfere  with  slavery 
in  States  that  chose  to  have  it ;  but  in  the  District  of  Columbia  the 
power  of  Congress  was  supreme,  and  the  matter  was  entirely  differ- 
ent. His  bill  provided  that  the  Federal  Government  should  pay 
full  value  to  the  slave-holders  of  the  District  for  all  slaves  in  their 


190  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

possession  and  should  at  once  free  the  older  ones.  The  younger 
slaves  were  to  be  apprenticed  for  a  term  of  years,  in  order  to  make 
them  self-supporting,  after  which  they  also  were  to  receive  their 
freedom. 

The  bill  was  very  carefiilly  thought  out,  and  had  the  approval 
of  residents  of  the  District  who  held  the  most  varied  views  upon 
slavery;  but  good  as  it  was,  the  measure  was  never  allowed  to  come 
to  a  vote,  and  Lincoln  went  back  to  Springfield,  at  the  end  of  his 
term,  feeling  doubtless  that  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  the  slaves  had 
been  all  in  vain. 

While  in  Washington  he  lived  very  simply  and  quietly,  taking 
little  part  in  the  social  life  of  the  city,  though  cordially  liked  by  all 
who  made  his  acquaintance.  An  inmate  of  the  modest  boarding- 
house  where  he  had  rooms  has  told  of  the  cheery  atmosphere  he 
seemed  to  bring  with  him  into  the  common  dining-room,  where 
political  arguments  were  apt  to  run  high.  He  never  appeared 
anxious  to  insist  upon  his  own  views;  and  when  others,  less  con- 
siderate, forced  matters  until  the  talk  threatened  to  become  too 
furious  he  would  interrupt  with  an  anecdote  or  a  story  that  cleared 
the  air  and  ended  the  discussion  in  a  general  laugh. 

Sometimes  for  exercise  he  would  go  into  a  bowling-alley  close 
by,  entering  into  the  game  with  great  zest,  and  accepting  defeat  and 
victory  with  equal  good-nature.  By  the  time  he  had  finished  a 
little  circle  would  be  gathered  around  him,  enjoying  his  enjoyment, 
and  laughing  at  his  quaint  expressions  and  sallies  of  wit 

His  absolute  and  impartial  fairness  to  friend  and  foe  alike  was 
one  of  his  strongest  traits,  governing  every  action  of  his  life.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  this  he  might  possibly  have  enjoyed  another  term 
in  Congress,  for  there  had  been  talk  of  re-electing  him.  But  there 
were  many  able  young  men  in  Springfield  who  coveted  the  honor, 
and  they  had  entered  into  an  agreement  among  themselves  that 
each  should  be  content  with  a  single  term.  Lincoln  of  course  re- 
mained faithful  to  his  promise.  His  strict  keeping  of  promises 
caused  him  also  to  lose  an  appointment  from  President  Taylor 
as  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  which  might  easily 
have  been  his,  but  for  which  he  had  agreed  to  recommend  some 
other  Illinois  man. 

A  few  weeks  later  the  President  offered  to  make  him  governor  of 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

THE  EARLIEST  PORTRAIT  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
From  a  daguerreotype  taken  in  184G,  when  Lincoln  was  forty. 


TN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  191 

the  new  Territory  of  Oregon.  This  attracted  him  much  more  than 
the  other  office  had  done,  but  he  declined  because  his  wife  was 
unwilling  to  live  in  a  place  so  far  away. 

His  career  in  Congress,  while  adding  little  to  his  fame  at  the 
time,  proved  of  great  advantage  to  him  in  after  life,  for  it  gave  him 
a  close  knowledge  of  the  workings  of  the  Federal  Government,  and 
brought  him  into  contact  with  political  leaders  from  all  parts  of  the 
Union. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  8s. 

The  Mexican  War,  the  "Spot  Resolutions,"  and  the  Dissatisfaction  of 

Lincoln's  Constituents 

The  Mexican  War  was  drawing  toward  its  close,  and  most  of 
the  talking  in  Congress  had  relation  to  it.  The  whole  Whig  party 
denounced  it  at  the  time,  and  the  nation  had  been  more  than  half 
ashamed  of  it  ever  since.  By  adroit  manoeuvres  Polk  had  forced 
the  fight  upon  a  weak  and  reluctant  nation,  and  had  made  to  his 
own  people  false  statements  as  to  both  the  facts  and  the  merits  of 
the  quarrel 

Good  strategy  achieved  a  series  of  brilliant  victories,  and 
fortunately  for  the  Whigs  General  Taylor  and  General  Scott,  to- 
gether with  a  large  proportion  of  the  most  distinguished  regimental 
officers,  were  of  that  party.  This  aided  them  essentially  in  their 
policy,  which  was,  to  denounce  the  entering  into  the  war  but  to  vote 
all  necessary  supplies  for  its  vigorous  prosecution. 

Into  this  scheme  of  his  party  Lincoln  entered  with  hearty 
concurrence.  A  week  after  the  House  met  he  closed  a  letter  to  his 
partner  with  the  remark: 

"As  you  are  all  so  anxious  for  me  to  distinguish  myself,  I  have 
concluded  to  do  so  before  long,"  and  what  he  said  humorously 
he  probably  meant  seriously. 

Accordingly  he  soon  afterward  (December  22,  1847)  introduced 
a  series,  which,  under  the  nickname  of  the  "Spot  Resolutions," 
attracted  some  attention.  Quoting  in  his  preamble  sundry  para- 
graphs of  the  President's  message  of  May  11,  1846,  to  the  purport 
that  Mexico  had  invaded  "our  territory,"  and  had  " shed  the  blood 
of  our  citizens  on  our  own  soil,"  he  then  requested  the  President  to 
state  "the  spot"  where  these  and  other  alleged  occurrences  had  taken 
place. 


192 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


His  first  "little  speech,"  was  on  "a  post-office  question  of  no 
general  interest ;"  and  he  found  himself  "about  as  badly  scared  and 
no  worse"  than  when  he  spoke  in  court.  So  a  little  later,  January  12, 
1848,  he  ventured  to  call  up  his  resolutions  and  to  make  a  speech 
upon  them.      .... 

Lincoln's  course  concerning  the  war  and  the  administration 

did  not  please  his  con- 
stituents. Many  of  his 
critics  remained  dissatis- 
fied, and  it  is  believed 
that  his  course  cost  the 
next  Whig  candidate  in 
the  district  votes  which 
he  could  not  afford  to 
lose. 

"To  those  who  de- 
sire that  I  should  be  re- 
elected," he  wrote  to 
Herndon,  "as  Mr.  Clay 
said  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  that  personally 
I  would  not  object  .  . 
if  it  should  so  happen 
iJiat   nobody    else    wishes 

to  be  elected To 

enter  myself  as  the  com- 
petitor of  others,  or  to 
authorize  any  one  so  to 
enter  me,  is  what  my 
word  and  honor  forbid." 
It  did  so  happen  that 
Judge  Logan,  whose  turn 
it  seemed  to  be,  wished 
the  nomination  and  re- 
ceived it.  He  was,  however,  defeated,  and  probably  paid  the  price 
of  Lincoln's  scrupulous  honesty. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Vol.  I,  page  74. 


JAMES  K.  POLK 

The  President  to  whom  Lincoln's  "  Spot  Resolutions ' 
were  addressed. 


TN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS 


193 


The  Champion  Story-Teller  of  the  Capitol 

During  the  Christmas  holidays  Mr.  Lincoln  found  his  way  into 
the  small  room  used  as  the  post-office  of  the  House,  where  a  few 
jovial  raconteurs  used  to  meet  almost  every  morning,  after  the  mail 
had  been  distributed  into  the  members'  boxes,  to  exchange  such  new 
stories  as  any  of  them  might  have  acquired  since  they  last  niet. 
After  modestly  standing  at  the  door  for  several  days,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  "reminded"  of  a  story,  and  by  New  Year's  he  was  recognized 
as  the  champion  story-teller  of  the  Capitol 

Mr.  Lincoln  boarded  with  Mrs.  Spriggs,  on  Capitol  Hill,  where 
he  had  as  messmates  the  veteran  Joshua  R.  Giddings  of  Ohio; 
John  Blanchard,  John  Dickey,  A.  R.  Mcllvaine,  John  Strohm,  and 
James  Pollock,  of  Pennsylvania;  Elisha  Embree  of  Indiana;  and 
P.  W.  Tompkins  of  Mississippi — all  Whigs. 

Reminiscenses  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ben:  Perley  Poore,  Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  217. 


Legal  Services  Rendered  Daniel  Webster 

Daniel  Webster,  who  was  then  in  the  Senate,  used  occasionally 
to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  at  his  pleasant 
Saturday  breakfasts,  where  the  West- 
ern Congressman's  humorous  illus- 
trations of  the  events  of  the  day, 
sparkling  with  spontaneous  and  un- 
premeditated wit,  would  give  great 
delight  to  "the  solid  men  of  Boston" 
assembled  around  the  festive  board. 

At  one  time  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
transacted  some  legal  business  for 
Mr.  Webster  connected  with  an  em- 
bryo city  laid  out  where  Rock  River 
empties  into  the  Mississippi.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  charged  Mr.  Webster 
for  his  legal  services  $io,  which  the 
Great  Expounder  of  the  Constitution 
regarded  as  too  small  a  fee,  and  he 
would  frequently  declare  that  he  was  still  Mr.  Lincoln's  debtor. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ben.  Perley  Poore,  Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  22* 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 


13 


194  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"My  Old  Eyes  Are  Full  of  Tears  Yet" 

I  digress  from  the  Mexican  War  subject  long  enough  to  insert, 
because  in  the  order  of  time  it  belongs  here,  a  characteristic  letter 
which  he  wrote  me  regarding  a  man  who  was  destined  at  a  later  day 
to  play  a  far  different  role  in  the  national  drama.     Here  is  is : 

"Washington,  Feb.  2,  1848. 
"Dear  William: 

"I  just  take  up  my  pen  to  say  that  Mr.  Stephens, 
of  Georgia,  a  little,  slim,  pale-faced,  consumptive  man,  with  a  voice 
like  Logan's,  has  just  concluded  the  very  best  speech  of  an  hour's 
length  I  ever  heard.  My  old,  withered,  dry  eyes  are  full  of  tears  yet. 
If  he  writes  it  out  anything  like  he  delivered  it  our  people  shall  see  a 
good  many  copies  of  it. 

"Yours  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 
"To  W.  M.  H.  Herndon,  Esq." 

Herndcm's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  268. 

General  Cass  on  "Working  and  Eating 

(From  a  speech  in  Congress,   July   27,    1848.) 

"Mr.  Speaker,  I  adopt  the  suggestion  of  a  friend,  that  General 
Cass  is  a  general  of  splendidly  successful  charges — charges,  to  be 
sure,  not  upon  the  public  enemy,  but  upon  the  public  treasury. 
He  was  Governor  of  Michigan  Territory,  and  ex-officio  Superintend- 
ent of  Indian  Affairs,  from  the  9th  of  October,  181 3,  till  the  31st  of 
July,  1 83 1 — a  period  of  seventeen  years,  nine  months,  and  twenty- 
two  days.  During  this  period  he  received  from  the  United  States 
treasury,  for  personal  services  and  personal  expenses,  the  aggregate 
sum  of  ninety-six  thousand  and  twenty-eight  dollars,  being  an  aver- 
age of  fourteen  dollars  and  seventy-nine  cents  per  day  for  every  day 
of  the  time.  This  large  sum  was  reached  by  assuming  that  he  was 
doing  service  at  several  different  places,  and  in  several  different 
capacities  in  the  same  place,  all  at  the  same  time 

"These  accoimts  have  already  been  discussed  some  here;  but 
when  we  are  amongst  them,  as  when  we  are  in  the  Patent  Office, 
we  must  peep  about  a  good  deal,  before  we  can  see  all  the  curiosities. 
I  shall  not  be  tedious  with  them.  As  to  the  large  item  of  $1500  per 
year — amounting  in  the  aggregate  to  $26,715 — for  office  rent,  cab 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  195 

hire,  fuel,  etc.,  I  barely  wish  to  remark  that  so  far  as  I  can  discover 
in  the  public  documents,  there  is  no  evidence,  by  word  or  inference, 
either  from  any  disinterested  witness  or  of  General  Cass  himself, 
that  he  ever  rented  or  kept  a  separate  office,  ever  hired  or  kept  a 
clerk,  or  even  used  any  extra  amount  of  fuel,  etc.,  in  consequence 
of  his  Indian  services.  Indeed,  General  Cass's  silence  in  regard  to 
these  items,  in  his  two  long  letters  urging  his  claims  upon  the  Gov- 
ernment, is,  to  my  mind,  almost  conclusive  that  no  such  claims  had 
any  real  existence. 

"  But  I  have  introduced  General  Cass's  accounts  here  chiefly  to 
show  the  wonderful  physical  capacities  of  the  man.  They  show  that 
he  not  only  did  the  labor  of  several  men  at  the  same  time,  but  that 
he  often  did  it  at  several  places,  many  hundreds  of  miles  apart,  at 
the  same  time. 

"And  at  eating,  too,  his  capacities  are  shown  to  be  quite  wonder- 
ful. From  October,  1821,  to  May,  1822,  he  ate  ten  rations  a  day  in 
Michigan,  ten  rations  a  day  here  in  Washington,  and  five  dollars' 
worth  a  day  on  the  road  between  the  two  places!  And  then  there 
is  an  important  discovery  in  his  example — the  art  of  being  paid  for 
what  one  eats,  instead  of  having  to  pay  for  it.  Hereafter,  if  any 
nice  yoimg  man  should  owe  a  bill  which  he  cannot  pay  in  any  other 
way,  he  can  just  board  it  out. 

"Mr.  Speaker,  vv^e  have  all  heard  of  the  animal  standing  in  doubt 
between  two  stacks  of  hay  and  starving  to  death.  The  like  of  that 
would  never  happen  to  General  Cass.  Place  the  stacks  a  thousand 
miles  apart,  he  would  stand  stock-still  midway  between  them,  and 
eat  them  both  at  once,  and  the  green  grass  along  the  line  would  be 
apt  to  suffer  some,  too,  at  the  same  time.  By  all  means  make  him 
President,  gentlemen.  He  will  feed  you  bounteously — if — if  there 
is  any  left  after  he  shall  have  helped  himself." 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  Military  Heroes,  page  173. 

"What  Will  Be  the  Upshot  of  this  Comet  Business?" 

Thomas  H.  Nelson,  of  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  relates  the  follow- 
ing: 

"Judge  Abram  Hammond,  afterwards  Governor  of  Indiana,  and 
myself,  arranged  to  go  from  Terre  Haute  to  Indianapolis  in  the  stage- 
coach. As  we  stepped  in  we  discovered  that  the  entire  back  seat 
was  occupied  by  a  long,  lank  individual  whose  head  seemed  to 


196  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

protrude  from  one  end  of  the  coach  and  his  feet  from  the  other.  He 
was  the  sole  occupant,  and  was  sleeping  soundly.  Hammond 
slapped  him  familiarly  on  the  shoulder,  and  asked  him  if  he  had 
chartered  the  coach  that  day. 

'"Certainly  not,'  and  he  at  once  took  the  front  seat,  politely 
surrendering  to  us  the  place  of  honor  and  comfort.  An  odd-looking 
fellow  he  was,  with  a  twenty-five  cent  hat,  and  without  vest  or  cravat. 

"Regarding  him  as  a  good  subject  for  merriment,  we  perpetrated 
several  jokes.  He  took  them  all  with  the  utmost  innocence  and 
good  nature  and  joined  in  the  laugh,  although  at  his  own  expense. 
We  amazed  him  with  words  of  great  length  and  thundering  sound. 
After  an  astounding  display  of  wordy  pyrotechnics,  the  dazed  and 
bewildered  stranger  asked, 

'"What  will  be  the  upshot  of  this  comet  business?' 

"Late  in  the  evening  we  reached  Indianapolis  and  hurried  to 
Browning's  Hotel,  losing  sight  of  the  stranger  altogether.  We 
retired  to  our  room  to  brush  our  clothes. 

"In  a  few  minutes  I  descended  to  the  portico,  and  there  I  saw 
our  long,  gloomy  fellow-traveler  in  the  center  of  an  admiring  group 
of  lawyers,  among  whom  were  Judges  McLean  and  Huntington, 
Albert  S.  White,  and  Richard  W.  Thompson,  who  seemed  to  be 
amused  and  interested  in  a  story  he  was  telling.  I  inquired  of 
Browning,  the  landlord,  who  the  tall  young  man  was. 

"  'Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois — a  member  of  Congress,'  was  the 
response. 

"I  was  thunderstruck ;  hastening  upstairs  I  told  Hammond  the 
startling  news;  together  we  sneaked  away  from  that  hotel  by  a 
back  door  and  went  down  an  alley  to  another  house,  thus  avoiding 
further  contact  with  our  distinguished  fellow-traveler. 

"Years  afterward,  when  the  President-elect  was  on  his  way  to 
Washington,  I  was  in  the  same  hotel  looking  over  the  distinguished 
party,  when  a  long  arm  reached  to  my  shoulder,  and  a  shrill  voice 
exclaimed : 

"'Hello,  Nelson!  Do  you  think,  after  all,  the  whole  world  is 
going  to  follow  the  darned  thing  off?' 

' '  The  words  were  my  own  reply  to  his  question  about  the  comet 
in  the  stage-coach  years  before. 

"The  speaker  was  Abraham  Lincoln." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  89. 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS 


197 


Lincoln  in  the  Thirtieth  Congress  and  Afterward— A  Summary 

The  routine  work  assigned  to  Lincoln  in  the  Thirtieth  Congress 
was  on  the  committee  on  the  post-office  and  post-roads.  Several 
reports  were  made  by  him  from  this  committee.  These  reports, 
with  a  speech  on  internal  improvements,  cover  his  published  work 
in  the  House  up  to  July. 

As  the  Whigs  were 
to  hold  their  national 
convention  for  nomina- 
ting a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  in  June,  Lin- 
coln gave  considerable 
time  during  the  spring  to 
electioneering.  In  his 
judgment  the  Whigs 
could  elect  nobody  but 
General  Taylor,  and  he 
urged  his  friends  in  Illi- 
nois to  give  up  Henry 
Clay,  to  whom  many  of 
them  still  clung. 

"Mr.  Clay's  chance 
for  an  election, "he wrote, 
"is  just  no  chance  at  all." 
Lincoln  went  to  the  con- 
vention, which  was  held 
in  Philadelphia,  and,  as 
he  prophesied,  "Old 
Rough-and-Ready"  was 
nominated.  He  went 
back  to  Washington  full 
of  enthusiasm. 


GENERAL  ZACHARY  TAYLOR 
("Old  Rough-and-Ready.") 

Lincoln's  speeches  in  New  England  and  elsewhere  helped 
make  General  Taylor  President. 


"In  my  opinion  we  shall  have  a  most  overwhelming,  glorious 
triumph,"  he  wrote  a  friend.  "One  unmistakable  sign  is  that  all  the 
odds  and  ends  are  with  us — Barnburners,  Native  Americans, 
Tyler  men,  disappointed  office-seekers,  Locofocos,  and  the  Lord 
Knows  what.  This  is  important,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  showing  which 
way  the  wind  blows." 


1 98  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

In  connection  with  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  of  whom  he  had 
become  a  warm  friend,  Toombs,  and  Preston,  Lincoln  formed  the 
first  Congressional  Taylor  club,  known  as  the  "Young  Indians." 
Campaigning  had  already  begun  on  the  floor  of  Congress,  and  the 
members  were  daily  making  speeches  for  the  various  candidates. 
On  July  27th  he  made  a  speech  for  Taylor.  It  was  a  boisterous 
speech,  full  of  merciless  caricaturing,  and  delivered  with  unmis- 
takable drollery.  It  kept  the  House  in  an  uproar,  and  was  repeated 
the  country  over  by  the  Whig  press.  The  Baltimore  American, 
in  giving  a  synopsis  of  it,  called  it  the  "crack  speech  of  the  day," 
and  said  of  Lincoln: 

"He  is  a  very  able,  acute,  imcouth,  honest,  upright  man,  and  a 

tremendous  wag,  withal Mr.  Lincoln's  manner  was  so 

good-natured,  and  his  style  so  peculiar,  that  he  kept  the  House  in  a 
continuous  roar  of  merriment  for  the  last  half  hour  of  his  speech. 
He  would  commence  a  point  in  his  speech  far  up  one  of  the  aisles, 
and  keep  on  talking,  gesticulating,  and  walking  until  he  would  find 
himself,  at  the  end  of  a  paragraph,  down  in  the  center  of  the  area  in 
front  of  the  clerk's  desk.  He  would  then  go  back  again  and  take 
another  head  and  work  down  again.  And  so  on,  through  his  capi- 
tal speech." 

This  speech,  as  well  as  the  respect  Lincoln's  work  in  the  House 
had  inspired  among  the  leaders  of  the  party,  brought  him  an  invita- 
tion to  deliver  several  campaign  speeches  in  New  England  at  the  close 
of  Congress,  and  he  went  there  early  in  September.  .....  Lin- 
coln, in  the  first  speech  he  made,  defined  carefully  his  position  on  the 
slavery  question.  This  was  at  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  on  Sep- 
tember 12th.  .  .  .  Curiously  enough  the  meeting  w^as  presided 
over  by  ex-Governor  Levi  Lincoln,  a  descendant,  like  Abraham 
Lincoln,  from  the  original  Samuel  of  Hingham.  There  were  many 
brilliant  speeches  made ;  but  if  we  are  to  trust  the  reports  of  the  day, 
Lincoln's  was  the  one  which  by  its  logic,  its  clearness,  and  its 
himior,  did  most  for  the  Whig  cause. 

"Gentlemen  inform  me,"  says  one  Boston  reporter,  who  came 
too  late  for  the  exercises,  "that  it  was  one  of  the  best  speeches  ever 
heard  in  Worcester,  and  that  several  Whigs  who  had  gone  off  on  the 
'free  soil'  fizzle  have  come  back  again  to  the  Whig  ranks."  .... 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONGRESS  199 

After  the  speech  at  Worcester,  Lincoln  spoke  at  Lowell ,  Ded- 
ham,  Roxbury,  Chelsea  and  Cambridge,  and  on  September  22nd,  in 
Tremont  Temple,  Boston,  following  a  splendid  oration  by  Governor 
Seward.  His  speech  on  this  occasion  was  not  reported,  though  the 
Boston  papers  united  in  calling  it  "powerful  and  convincing." 
His  success  at  Worcester  and  Boston  was  such  that  invitations  came 
from  all  over  New  England  asking  him  to  speak. 

But  Lincoln  won  something  in  New  England  of  vastly  deeper 
importance  than  a  reputation  for  making  popular  campaign  speeches. 
Here  for  the  first  time  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  utter  impossibility 
of  ever  reconciling  the  Northern  conviction  that  slavery  was  evil 
and  unendurable,  and  the  Southern  claim  that  it  was  divine  and 
necessary;  and  he  began  here  to  realize  that  something  must  be 
done 

Listening  to  Seward's  speech  in  Tremont  Temple,  he  seems  to 
have  had  a  sudden  insight  into  the  truth,  a  quick  illumination ;  and 
that  night,  as  the  two  men  sat  talking,  he  said  gravely  to  the  great 
anti-slavery  advocate: 

"Governor  Seward,  I  have  been  thinking  about  what  you  said 
in  your  speech.  I  reckon  you  are  right.  We  have  got  to  deal  with 
this  slavery  question,  and  got  to  give  much  more  attention  to  it 
hereafter  than  we  have  been  doing." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  216. 

Sees  Niagara  Falls 

It  was  late  in  September  when  Lincoln  started  westward  from 
his  campaigning  in  New  England.  He  stopped  in  Albany,  N.  Y., 
and  in  company  with  Thurlow  Weed  called  on  Fillmore,  then  candi- 
date for  Vice-President.  From  Albany  he  went  to  Niagara.  Mr. 
Herndon  once  asked  him  what  made  the  deepest  impression  on  him 
when  he  stood  before  the  Falls. 

"The  thing  that  struck  me  most  forcibly  when  I  saw  the  Falls,", 
he  responded,  "was  where  in  the  world  did  all  that  water  come 
from?"  .....  Published  in  his  "Complete  Works"  is  a  frag- 
ment on  Niagara  which  shows  how  deeply  his  mind  was  stirred 
by  the  majesty  of  that  mighty  wonder: 

"Niagara  Falls!  By  what  mysterious  power  is  it  that  millions 
and  millions  are  drawn  frorn  all  parts  of  the  world  to  gaze  upon 


200  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Niagara  Falls ?  There  is  no  mystery  about  the  thing  itself.  Every 
effect  is  just  as  any  intelligent  man,  knowing  the  causes,  would 
anticipate  withoiit  seeing  it.  If  the  water  moving  onward  in  a  great 
river  reaches  a  point  where  there  is  a  perpendicular  jog  of  a  hundred 
feet  in  descent  in  the  bottom  of  the  river,  it  is  plain  the  water  will 
have  a  violent  and  continuous  plunge  at  that  point.  It  is  also  plain 
that  the  water,  thus  plunging,  will  foam  and  roar  and  send  up  a 
mist  continuously,  in  which  last,  during  sunshine,  there  will  be 
perpetual  rainbows.  The  mere  physical  side  of  Niagara  Falls  is  only 
this.   Yet  this  is  really  a  very  small  part  of  that  world's  wonder.  Its 

power  to  excite  reflection  and  emotion  is  its  great  charm 

"But  still  there  is  more.  It  calls  up  the  indefinite  past.  When 
Columbus  first  sought  this  continent — when  Christ  suffered  on  the 
cross — when  Moses  led  Israel  through  the  Red  Sea, — nay,  even 
when  Adam  first  came  from  the  hand  of  his  Maker;  then  as  now, 
Niagara  was  roaring  here.  The  eyes  of  that  species  of  extinct 
giants  whose  bones  fill  the  mounds  of  America  have  gazed  on 
Niagara,  as  ours  do  now ....  Niagara  is  as  strong  and  fresh- 
to-day  as  ten  thousand  years  ago ....  The  mammoth  and  the 
mastodon,  so  long  dead  that  fragments  of  their  monstrous  bones 
alone  testify  that  they  ever  lived,  have  gazed  on  Niagara — in  that 
long,  long  time  never  still  for  a  moment,  never  dried,  never  froze, 
never  slept,  never  rested." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  225. 

"A.  Lincoln's  Imp'd  Manner  of  Buoying  Vessels" 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  friends,  W.  G.  Greene,  states  that 
the  first  time  he  ever  saw  Mr.  Lincoln,  "he  was  in  the  Sangamon 
River,  with  his  trousers  rolled  up  five  feet,  more  or  less,  trying  to 
pilot  a  flatboat  over  a  mill-dam.  "      .... 

The  practical  and  ingenious  character  of  Lincoln's  mind  is 
shown  in  the  fact  that  several  years  after  his  river  experience  he 
invented  and  patented  a  device  for  overcoming  some  of  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  navigation  of  western  rivers  with  which  this  trip  made 
him  familiar.  The  following  interesting  account  of  this  invention 
is  given : 

"Occupying  an  ordinary  and  commonplace  position  in  one  of 
the  show-cases  in  the  large  hall  of  the  Patent  Office,  is  one  little 


IN  POLITICS  AND  CONCRESS 


201 


model  which,  in  ages  to  come,  will  be  prized  as  one  of  the  most 
curiotis  and  one  of  the  most  sacred  relics  in  that  vast  museum  of 
unique  and  priceless  things. 

"This  is  a  plain  and  simple  model  of  a  steamboat,  roughly 
fashioned  in  wood  by  the  hand  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  bears  date 
in  1849,  when  the  inventor  was  known as  a  successful  lawyer 


1 


mma  mm 

■     -.lit 


The  model  of  Lincoln's  invention,  as  it  appears  in  the  Patent  Office  at  Washington. 

and  a  rising  politician  of  Central  Illinois.  Neither  his  practice  nor 
his  politics  took  up  so  much  of  his  time  as  to  prevent  him  from 
giving  some  attention  to  contrivances  which  he  hoped  might  be  of 

benefit  to  the  world  and  of  profit  to  himself 

"  It  is  an  attempt  to  make  it  an  easy  matter  to  transport  vessels 
over  shoals  and  snags  and  'sawyers.'  The  main  idea  is  that  of  an 
apparatus  resembling  a  noiseless  bellows,  placed  on  each  side  of  the 


20  2  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

hull  of  the  craft,  just  below  the  water-line,  and  worked  by  an  odd 
but  not  complicated  system  of  ropes,  valves  and  pulleys.  When 
the  keel  of  the  vessel  grates  against  the  sand  or  obstruction,  these 
bellows  are  to  be  filled  with  air;  and,  thus  buoyed  up,  the  ship  is 
expected  to  float  lightly  and  gaily  over  the  shoal,  which  would  other- 
wise have  proved  a  serious  interruption  to  her  voyage. 

"The  model,  which  is  about  eighteen  or  twenty  inches  long, 
and  has  the  appearance  of  having  been  whittled  with  a  knife  out  of 
a  shingle  and  a  cigar-box,  is  built  without  any  elaboration  or  orna- 
ment, or  any  extra  apparatus  beyond  that  necessary  to  show  the 

operation  of  buoying  the  steamer  over  the  obstructions 

This  model  is  carved  as  one  might  imagine  a  retired  rail-splitter 
would  whittle,  strongly  but  not  smoothly,  and  evidently  made  with 
a  view  solely  to  convey  to  the  minds  of  the  patent  authorities,  by 
the  simplest  possible  means,  an  idea  of  the  purpose  and  plan  of  the 
invention. 

"The  label  on  the  steamer's  deck  informs  us  that  the  patent 
was  obtained ;  but  we  do  not  learn  that  the  navigation  of  the  west- 
ern rivers  was  revolutionized  by  this  quaint  conception.  The 
modest  little  model  has  reposed  here  many  years ;  and  since  it  found 
its  resting-place  here  on  the  shelf,  the  shrewd  inventor  has  found 
it  his  task  to  guide  the  Ship  of  State  over  shoals  more  perilous,  and 
obstructions  more  obstinate  than  any  prophet  dreamed  of  when 
Abraham  Lincoln  wrote  his  bold  autograph  on  the  prow  of  his 
miniature  steamer. ' ' 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  92. 

[When  Lincoln  showed  this  model  to  a  certain  patent  authority, 
he  said  he  "reckoned  it  would  work  where  the  ground  was  a  little 
damp."— W.  W.] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

State  Capital  and  Eighth  Circuit 

"A  Place  for  Everything" 

After  a  flying  visit  to  Washington  in  the  summer  of  1849,  Lin- 
coln settled  down  again  to  his  old  round  of  duties  at  Springfield, 
steadied  by  political  disappointment.  Here  he  was  frequently  con- 
sulted as  to  the  filling  of  offices  in  his  district,  and  was  characteris- 
tically candid  in  his  replies.  Many  a  politician  would  have  been  con- 
tent to  urge  the  claims  of  his  own  friends  on  the  attention  of  the 
Administration,  but  Lincoln  had  a  scrupulous  sense  of  responsi- 
bility, and  a  single  desire  to  serve  the  public  good.  His  fairness  of 
spirit  is  humorously  illustrated  by  the  following,  from  a  letter  to  the 
Secretary  of  State : 

"Mr.  Bond  I  know  to  be,  personally,  every  way  worthy  of  the 
office  (in  question) ;  and  he  is  very  numerously  and  most  respect- 
ably recommended.  His  paper  I  send  to  you;  and  I  solicit  for  his 
claims  a  full  and  fair  consideration.  Having  said  this  much,  I  add 
that,  in  my  individual  judgment,  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Thomas 
would  be  better.  " 

By  mid-July  he  had  apparently  abandoned  politics  and  become 
once  more  immersed  in  the  law.  On  his  return  from  Washington  he 
had  been  offered  a  partnership  in  a  Chicago  law  firm,  but  had 
declined  on  the  ground  that  he  had  a  tendency  toward  consumption, 
and  he  feared  the  effect  of  a  town  practice  on  his  health 

In  spite  of  the  relentless  logic  of  his  thought,  the  senior  partner 
(of  the  firm  of  Lincoln  &  Herndon)  was  the  least  methodical 
of  men  in  matters  of  detail,  and  his  junior,  in  whom  he  had  hoped 
to  find  balancing  qualities,  proved  to  be  little  better.  Any  order 
which  could  be  discovered  in  the  office  must,  therefore,  have  been 
due  to  the  advent  of  some  student-clerk  who  had  taken  chaos  in 
hand,  swept  out  the  room  and  sorted  the  papers.  The  office  was  on 
the  first  floor  (upstairs)  of  a  brick  building  which  faced  the  court- 
house across  the  public  square,  but  it  was  a  back  room  and  its 

(203) 


From  a  photograph  taken  in  the  library  of  Major  William  H.  Lambert.  Germantcwn.  Philadelphia. 

LINCOLN'S  DESK-BOOKCASE  AND  CHAIR 


(904) 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  205 


windows  overlooked  the  yard.  Its  furniture  consisted  of  the  baize- 
covered  table,  a  few  chairs,  an  old-fashioned  "secretary"  and  a 
book-case  containing  a  couple  of  hundred  law-books. 

Lincoln's  real  desk,  in  whose  drawers  and  pigeon-holes,  so  to 
speak,  all  his  more  important  notes  and  memoranda  were  deposited, 
was  a  tall  silk  hat.  This  figures  in  his  business  papers,  for  he  writes, 
somewhat  unprofessionally,  to  a  fellow-lawyer,  whose  correspond- 
ence he  had  neglected : 

"When  I  received  the  letter,  I  put  it  in  my  old  hat,  and  buying 
a  new  one  the  next  day,  the  old  one  was  set  aside,  and  so  the  lettel 
was  lost  sight  of  for  a  time." 

On  top  of  the  secretary  (desk)  lay  a  bundle  of  papers,  alwa^*' 
growing  in  bulk,  and  labeled: 


\e^  /yr^    ^2^*^^;/^-*- 4£^  «-v~,  ^^ 


Abraham  lAncoln,  Henry  Bryan  Binns,  page  114. 

"Giving  Away  What  He  Couldn't  Get  and  Keep" 

"As  Lincoln  entered  the  trial,"  relates  one  of  his  colleagues  of 
the  bar  (Leonard  Swett)," where  most  lawyers  would  object  he  would 
say  he  'reckoned'  it  would  be  fair  to  let  this  in  or  that ;  and  some- 
times, when  his  adversary  could  not  quite  prove  what  Lincoln  knew 
to  be  the  truth,  he  'reckoned'  it  would  be  fair  to  admit  the  truth  to 
be  so-and-so.  When  he  did  object  to  the  court  and  when  he  b*iard 
his  objections  answered,  he  would  often  say,  'Well,  I  reckon  I  must 
be  wrong.' 

"Now,  about  the  time  he  had  practised  this  three-fourths 
through  the  case,  if  his  adversary  didn't  understand  him,  he  would 
wake  up  in  a  few  minutes  and  find  himself  beaten.  He  was  as  'wise 
as  a  serpent '  in  the  trial  of  a  cause,  but  I  have  had  too  many  scars 
from  his  blows  to  certify  that  he  was  as  'harmless  as  a  dove.' 

"When  the  whole  thing  was  unravelled  the  adversary  would 
begin  to  see  that  what  he  was  so  blandly  giving  away  was  simply 
what  he  wouldn't  get  and  keep.  By  giving  away  six  points  and 
carrying  the  seventh  he  carried  his  case,  and  the  whole  case  hang  ng 


2o6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

on  the  seventh,  he  traded  away  everything  which  would  give  him 
the  lead  in  carrying  that. 

"Any  man  who  took  Lincoln  for  a  simple-minded  man  would 
very  soon  wake  up  with  his  back  in  a  ditch." 

Hemdons  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  3. 


How  Lincoln  Retaliated  on  Opposing  Counsel 

Judge  Weldon  told  the  writer  that  on  one  occasion  a  lawyer 
challenged  a  juror  because  of  his  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  who  appeared  for  the  other  side.  Such  an  objection  was 
regarded  as  more  or  less  a  reflection  upon  the  honor  of  an  attorney 
in  those  days,  and  Judge  Davis,  who  was  presiding  at  the  time, 
promptly  overruled  the  challenge;  but  when  Lincoln  rose  to  ex- 
amine the  jury  he  gravely  followed  his  adversary's  lead  and  began 
to  ask  the  talesmen  whether  they  were  acquainted  with  his  oppo- 
nent. After  two  or  three  "had  answered  in  the  affirmative,  however, 
his  Honor  interfered. 

"Now,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  he  observed  severely,  "you  are  wasting 
time.  The  mere  fact  that  a  juror  knows  your  opponent  does  not 
disqualify  him." 

"No,  your  Honor,"  responded  Lincoln  dryly.  "But  I  am  afraid 
some  of  the  gentlemen  may  not  know  him,  which  would  place  me  at 
a  disadvantage." 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  212. 


Studying  Euclid  and  Telling  Stories  in  the  "Wee  Sma'  Hours" 

While  a  member  of  Congress  and  otherwise  immersed  in  politics, 
Lincoln  seemed  to  lose  all  interest  in  the  law.  .  .  .  When  he 
returned,  our  practice  was  as  extensive  as  that  of  any  other  firm  at 
the  bar.  ...  I  could  notice  a  difference  in  Lincoln's  movements 
as  a  lawyer  from  this  time  forward.  '.  .  .  There  was,  of  course,  the 
same  riding  on  the  circuit  as  before,  but  the  courts  had  improved 
in  tone  and  morals,  ...  at  least  it  appeared  so  to  Lincoln. 
Political  defeat  had  wrought  a  marked  effect  on  him.  It  went 
below  the  skin  and  made  a  changed  man  of  him.  He  was  not 
soured  at  his  seeming  political  decline,  but  still  he  determined  to 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  207 

eschew  politics  from  that  time  forward  and  devote  himself  entirely 
to  the  law 

No  man  had  greater  power  of  application  than  he.  Once  fixing 
his  mind  on  any  subject,  nothing  could  interfere  with  or  disturb 
him.  Frequently  I  would  go  out  on  the  circuit  with  him.  We 
usually,  at  the  little  country  inns,  occupied  the  same  bed.  In  most 
cases  the  beds  were  too  short  for  him,  and  his  feet  would  hang  over 
the  foot-board.  Placing  a  candle  on  a  chair  at  the  head  of  the  bed, 
he  would  read  and  study  for  hours  I  have  known  him  to  study  in 
this  position  till  two  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Meanwhile,  I  and 
others  who  chanced  to  occupy  the  same  room  would  be  safely  and 
soundly  asleep.  On  the  circuit  in  this  way  he  studied  Euclid 
until  he  could  with  ease  demonstrate  all  the  propositions  in  the  six 
books 

In  the  role  of  a  story-teller  I  .  .  .  regard  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
without  an  equal.  I  have  seen  him  surrounded  by  a  crowd  number- 
ing 200  to  300  persons,  all  deeply  interested  in  a  story  vshich,  when 
he  had  finished  it,  speedily  found  repetition  in  every  grocery  and 
lounging-place  within  reach.  His  power  of  mimicry  and  his  manner 
of  recital  were  unique.  .  .  .  His  countenance  and  all  his  features 
seemed  to  take  part  in  the  performance  As  he  neared  the  pith  or 
point  of  the  story  every  vestige  of  seriousness  disappeared  from  his 
face.  His  little  gray  eyes  sparkled;  a  smile  seemed  to  gather  up, 
curtain  like,  the  corners  of  his  mouth;  his  frame  quivered  with 
suppressed  excitement;  and  when  the  point — or  "nub"  of  the 
story,  as  he  called  it — came,  no  one's  laugh  was  heartier  than  his.    . 

Every  recital  was  followed  by  its  "storm  of  laughter  and 
chorus  of  cheers. "...  When  Lincoln,  Murray  and  Engle  met, 
there  was  sure  to  be  a  crowd.  All  were  more  or  less  masters  in 
their  art.  ...  I  have  known  these  story -telling  jousts  to  con- 
tinue long  after  midnight — in  some  cases  till  the  very  small  hours 
of  the  morning. 

I  have  seen  Judge  Treat,  who  was  the  impersonation  of  gravity 
itself,  sit  up  till  the  last  and  laugh  until,  as  he  often  expressed  it,  he 
"  almost  shook  his  ribs  loose.  "  The  next  day  he  would  ascend  the 
bench  and  listen  to  Lincoln  in  a  murder  trial,  with  all  the  seeming 
severity  of  an  English  judge  in  wig  and  gown. 

flerndon's  Lincoln,  William  H,  Herqdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  ^07, 


2o8  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"The  Ogmathorial  Court"  and  the  Firm  of  "Catchem  &  Cheatem" 

Early  in  our  practice  a  gentleman  named  Scott  placed  in  my 
hands  a  case  of  some  importance.  He  had  a  demented  sister  who 
possessed  property  to  the  amount  of  $10,000,  mostly  in  cash.  A 
"conservator,"  as  he  was  called,  had  been  appointed  to  take  charge 
of  the  estate,  and  we  were  employed  to  resist  a  motion  to  remove 
the  conservator.  A  designing  adventurer  had  become  acquainted 
with  the  unfortunate  girl,  and  knowing  that  she  had  money,  sought 
to  marry  her,  hence  the  motion. 

Scott,  the  brother  and  conservator,  before  we  entered  on  the 
case,  insisted  that  I  should  fix  the  amount  of  the  fee.  I  told  him  that 
it  would  be  $250,  adding,  however,  that  he  had  better  wait;  it 
might  not  give  us  much  trouble,  and  in  that  event  a  less  amount 
would  do.  He  agreed  at  once  to  pay  $250,  as  he  expected  a  hard 
contest  over  the  motion. 

The  case  was  tried  inside  of  twenty  minutes ;  our  success  was 
complete.  Scott  was  satisfied,  and  cheerfully  paid  over  the  money 
to  me  inside  the  bar,  Mr.  Lincoln  looking  on.  Scott  then  went  out, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  asked, 

"What  did  you  charge  that  man?" 

I  told  him  $250.  Said  he,  "Lamon,  that  is  all  wrong.  The 
service  was  not  worth  that  sum.     Give  him  back  at  least  half  of  it." 

I  protested  that  the  fee  was  fixed  in  advance;  that  Scott  was 
perfectly  satisfied,  and  had  so  expressed  himself. 

"That  may  be,"  retorted  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  a  look  of  distress 
and  of  undisguised  displeasure,  "but  /  am  not  satisfied.  This  is 
positively  wrong.  Go,  call  him  back  and  return  half  of  the  money 
at  least,  or  I  will  not  have  one  cent  of  it  for  my  share." 

I  did  go,  and  Scott  was  astonished  when  I  handed  back  half 
the  fee. 

This  conversation  attracted  the  attention  of  the  lawyers  and 
the  court.  Judge  David  Davis,  then  on  our  Circuit  Bench,  called 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  him.  The  Judge  never  could  whisper,  but  in  this 
instance  he  probably  did  his  best.  At  all  events,  in  attempting  to 
whisper  to  Mr.  Lincoln  he  trumpeted  his  rebuke  in  about  these  words 
and  in  rasping  tones  that  could  be  heard  all  over  the  court-room: 

"Lincoln,  I  have  been  watching  you  and  Lampn.  You  are 
impoverishing  this,  bar  by  your  picayune  charges  of  fees,  and  the 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  209 

lawyers  have  reason  to  complain  of  you.  You  are  now  almost  as 
poor  as  Lazarus,  and  if  you  don't  make  people  pay  you  more  for 
your  services  you  w411  die 'as  poor  as  Job's  turkey !'"    .... 

But  Lincoln  was  immovable.  "That  money,"  said  he,  "comes 
out  of  the  pocket  of  a  poor,  demented  girl,  and  I  would  rather  starve 
than  swindle  her  in  this  manner." 

That  evening  the  lawyers  got  together  and  tried  Mr.  Lincoln 
before  the  mock  tribunal  called  "The  Ogmathorial  Court."  He 
was  found  guilty  and  fined  for  his  awful  crime  against  the  pockets 
of  his  brethren  of  the  bar.  The  fine  he  paid  with  great  good  humor, 
and  then  kept  the  crowd  of  lawyers  in  uproarious  laughter  until  after 
midnight !  He  persisted  in  his  revolt,  however,  declaring  that  with 
his  consent  his  firm  should  never  during  its  life,  or  after  its  dissolu- 
tion, deserve  the  reputation  enjoyed  by  those  shining  lights  of  the 
profession,  ''Catchem  &  Cheatem." 

Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  17, 

"If  I'm  an  Uglier  Man  than  You  I  Don't  Want  to  Live ! " 

Lincoln  was,  naturally  enough,  much  surprised  one  day  when 
a  man  of  rather  forbidding  countenance  drew  a  revolver  and  thrust 
the  weapon  almost  into  his  face 

"  What  seems  to  be  the  matter? "  inquired  Lincoln,  with  all  the 
selfpossession  he  could  muster. 

"Well,"  replied  the  stranger,  who  did  not  appear  to  be  at  all 
excited,  "  some  years  ago  I  swore  an  oath  that  if  I  ever  came  across 
an  uglier  man  than  myself,  Ld  shoot  him  on  the  spot." 

On  hearing  this  Lincoln's  expression  lost  all  suggestion  of 
anxiety.     He  said  to  the  stranger: 

"  Shoot  me,  then,  for  if  I  am  an  uglier  man  than  you  I  don't 
want  to  live.  " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  65, 

Lawyer  Lincoln  Rescues  a  Pig 

While  Lincoln  was  practising  law  he  used  to  go  from  one  town 
to  another  to  try  cases  before  different  courts.  There  were  no  rail- 
roads in  those  days,  and  traveling  "on  the  circuit"  (going  around 
from  court  to  court)  was  done  mostly  on  horseback. 

One  day,  when  several  lawyers  besides  Mr.  Lincoln  were  travel- 
ing in  this  way,  they  carne  to  a  very  muddy  place  in  the  road,  and 


2IO  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

at  one  side,  near  the  rail  fence,  was  a  poor  pig  stuck  fast,  and  squeal- 
ing as  loud  as  possible. 

The  men  thought  this  very  funny  and  laughed  at  the  unfor- 
tunate pig ;  but  Lincoln  said, 

"Let  us  stop  and  help  the  poor  thing  out," 

"Oh,  Abe,"  said  one,  "you  must  be  crazy!  Your  clothes 
would  look  pretty  after  you  had  lifted  that  dirty  pig  up,  wouldn't 
they?" 

The  others  all  poked  fun  at  Lincoln,  and  so  they  rode  on  until 
they  were  out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  the  suffering  beast. 

Lincoln  rode  on  with  them  also,  but  little  by  little  he  went 
slower.  He  was  thinking  about  the  pig  and  the  farmer  who  owned 
him.  He  thought :  ."  What  a  pity  for  him  to  lose  that  pig ;  he  can't 
afford  it!  It  means  shoes  for  his  little  children  to  wear  next 
winter.  "  And  then  the  memory  of  that  pitiful  squeal  kept  ringing 
in  his  ears.  So,  after  going  quite  a  long  distance  with  the  other 
gentlemen,  Lincoln  turned  his  horse  and  rode  back  all  alone,  to  see 
if  he  could  get  the  pig  out.  He  found  the  poor  thing  still  deeper 
than  before  in  the  mud  and  mire.  So  he  took  some  rails  from 
the  fence,  and  putting  them  down  by  the  squealing  animal,  made 
a  safe  footing  to  stand  on.  Then  he  took  two  other  rails,  and, 
putting  them  under  the  pig,  pried  him  up  out  of  the  mud  until  he 
could  reach  him  with  his  hands.  Then  he  took  hold  of  him,  and, 
pulling  him  out,  placed  him  on  the  dry  sand. 

As  the  pig  ran  grunting  off  toward  his  home,  Lincoln  looked  at 
Hs  soiled  clothes  with  a  satisfied  smile,  as  much  as  to  say,  "Well, 
^  little  water  and  brushing  will  soon  make  the  clothes  look  clean 
again,  and  I  don't  care  if  the  other  fellows  do  laugh  at  me;  the  pig's 
out  of  his  misery,  and  Farmer  Jones's  children  won't  have  to  go 
barefoot  next  winter. " 

Lincoln  in  Story,  Silas  G.  Pratt,  page  57- 

•    "A  Seven-foot  Whistle  on  a  Five-foot  Boiler" 

Senator  Voorhees  told  the  following  story  of  Lincoln's  speech 
to  the  jury  in  answer  to  an  oratorical  lawyer  : 

"  I  recall  one  story  Lincoln  told  during  the  argument  in  a  law- 
suit. The  lawyer  on  the  other  side  was  a  good  deal  of  a  glib 
talker,  but  not  reckoned  as  deeply  profound  or  much  of  a  thinker. 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT 


211 


He  was  rather  reckless  and  irresponsible  in  his  speechmaking  also, 
and  would  say  anything  to  a  jury  which  happened  to  enter  his 
head.  Lincoln  in  his  address  to  the  jury,  referring  to  all  these, 
said  : 

'"My  friend  on  the  other  side  is  all  right,  or  would  be  all 
right,  were  it  not  for  the  physico-mental  peculiarity  I  am  about  to 
explain : 

'"  His  habit — of  which  you  have  witnessed  a  very  painful  speci- 
men in  his  argument  to  you  in  this  case — of  reckless  assertion  and 
statement  without  grounds,  need  not  be  imputed  to  him  as  a  moral 
fault  or  blemish. 
He  can't  help  it. 
For  reasons  which, 
gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  you  and  I 
have  not  time  to 
study  here,  as  de- 
plorable as  they 
are  surprising,  the 
oratory  of  the  gen- 
tleman completely 
suspends  all  action 
of  his  mind.    The 

moment  he  begins  to  talk  his  mental  operations  cease.  I  never 
knew  of  but  one  thing  which  compared  with  my  friend  in  this 
particular.  That  was  a  steamboat.  Back  in  the  days  when  I 
performed  my  part  as  a  keel  boatman  I  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  trifling  little  steamboat  which  used  to  bustle  and  puff  and 
wheeze  about  in  the  Sangamon  River.  It  had  a  five-foot  boiler 
and  a  seven-foot  whistle,  and  every  time  it  whistled  the  boat 
stopped.'" 

Newspaper  clipping  from  an  old  scrap-book. 


LINCOLN'S  SADDLE-BAGS 


"I  Cannot  Argue  this  Case— Our  Witnesses  Have  Been  Lying!" 

Judge  Davis  said  that  one  evening,  as  was  the  custom,  Lincoln 
and  Swett  came  to  his  room  in  the  hotel,  and  during  the  conversa- 
tion Lincoln  spoke  about  as  follows: 

"Swett,  Davis  and  I  are  old  friends,  and  what  we  say  here 


212  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

will  never  be  repeated  to  our  injury.  Now,  we  have  been  engaged 
in  this  trial  for  two  days,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  our  clients  are 
guilty,  and  that  the  witnesses  for  the  State  have  told  the  truth. 
It  is  my  opinion  that  the  best  thing  we  can  do  for  our  clients  is 
to  have  them  come  in  to-morrow  morning,  and  plead  guilty  to 

manslaughter,   and  let  Davis  give  them 
the  lowest  punishment.  " 

Mr.  Swett  said  he  would  do  nothing 
of  the  kind.  He  said,  "  Mr.  Lincoln,  you 
don't  know  what  evidence  I  have  got 
in  reserve  to  combat  the  witnesses  of  the 
State." 
^Ni.  "  I  don't  care,  "  replied  Mr.  Lincoln, 

■/     "what   evidence  you  have  got,    Swett; 
the  witnesses  for  the  State  have  told  the 
truth,  and  the  jury  will  believe  them.  " 
-^s^^^, -...:.-■  "Mr.   Lincoln,"  said  Mr.  Swett,  "I 

LEONARD  SWETT  shall  ncvcr  agree  to  your  proposition,  and 

propose  to  carry  on  our  defense  to  the  end .  " 
"All  right,  "  replied  Mr.  Lincoln. 

They  went  on  with  the  trial.  The  defendants  put  their  wit- 
nesses on  the  stand  and  the  time  came  for  arguments.  Then  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  to  Mr.  Swett, 

"  Now,  Swett,  I  cannot  argue  this  case,  because  our  witnesses 
have  been  lying,  and  I  don't  believe  them.  You  can  go  on  and 
make  the  argument. " 

Swett  made  the  argument,  the  case  went  to  the  jury,  and  the 
men  were  acquitted.  The  next  day  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Mr.  Swett 
and  said: 

"  Swett,  here  is  the  $500  which  I  have  received  for  defending 
one  of  these  men.     It  all  belongs  to  you,  take  it. " 

Of  course  Mr.  Swett  did  not  take  the  money,  but  it  showed,  as 
Judge  Davis  said,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  felt  he  had  done  nothing  to 
earn  the  mone3^ 

Abraham  Lincoln  as  an  Advocate,  W.  Lewis  Frazer.      The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  XLVII,  Feb- 
ruary,  1894,  "Open  Letters,"  page  676. 

An  Illustrious  Pillow  Fight 

It  was  while  out  on  the  circuit  that  he  was  seen  for  the  first 
time  by  a  young  man  who  afterw^ard  became  one  of  the  prominent 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  213 


lawyers  of  Central  Illinois.  The  latter,  with  a  letter  of  introduction 
from  a  friend,  found  him  one  evening  at  the  tavern  in  the  town 
of  Danville. 

"I  was  told,"  he  relates,  "that  I  would  find  Mr.  Lincoln  in 
Judge  Davis's  room.  I  climbed  the  unbanistered  stairway,  and 
to  my  timid  knock  two  voices  responded  almost  simultaneously, 

"'Come  in!' 

"  Imagine  my  surprise,  when  the  door  opened,  to  find  two  men 
undressed,  or  rather  dressed  for  bed,  engaged  in  a  lively  battle  with 
pillows,    flinging    them    at    each    other's    head; 
one,  a  low,  heavy-set  man,  who,  leaning  against 
the  bed   and  puffing  like  a  lizard,  answered  to 
the  description  of    Judge  Davis;    the  other,    a 
man    of    tremendous   stature,   looking  as  if   he 
were  at  least  seven  feet  tall,  was  incased  in  a 
long  garment,  yellow  as  saffron,  which  reached 
to  his  heels,  and  from  beneath  which  protruded 
two  of  the  largest  feet  that,  up  to  that  time,  it    ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^^^ 
had  ever  been  my  privilege  to   see.     This  im-    ^Afterwards  President  of 
mense   shirt — for   such  it   must    have    been —         the  united  states 
looked  as  if  it    had  literally  been  chopped  out  enate.) 

of  the  original  bolt  of  flannel  from  which  it  had  been  made  and 
the  pieces  joined  together  in  the  dark  without  reference  to  fit  or 
measurement.  The  only  thing  that  kept  it  from  slipping  off  the 
gaunt,  attenuated  frame  it  so  completely  enveloped  was  the  single 
button  at  the  throat.  I  cannot  fully  describe  my  sensations  as 
this  apparition,  with  the  modest  announcement, 

"  'My  name  is  Lincoln,  sir, '  strode  across  the  room  and  grasped 
my  hand. " 

Lincoln  as  a  Lawyer,  Jesse  W.  Weik.    The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  XLVI,  June,  1904,  page  285. 

A  Rating  Not  in  "Dun"  or  "Bradstreet" 

A  New  York  firm  applied  to  Abraham  Lincoln  some  years  before 
he  became  President,  for  information  as  to  the  financial  standing  of 
one  of  his  neighbors.     Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"  I  am  well  acquainted  with  Mr.  Blank,  and  know  his  cir- 
cumstances. 

"  First  of  all,  he  has  a  wife  and  baby ;  together  they  ought  to  be 
worth  $50,000  to  any  man. 


214      ■  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Secondly,  he  has  an  office  in  which  there  is  a  table  worth  $1.50, 
and  three  chairs  worth,  say,  $1.00. 

"  Last  of  all,  there  is  in  one  comer  a  large  rat-hole,  which  will 
bear  looking  into. 

"Respectfully, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  377. 

How  He  Fared  on  the  Circuit 

Courts  lasted  nearly  six  months  in  the  year,  and  the  judge  and 
lawyers  generally  contrived  to  spend  as  many  Sabbaths  at  home  as 
they  could.  Lincoln  did  not  join  in  this  effort,  but,  contrariwise, 
when  he  set  out  on  a  tour  of  the  circuit,  generally  continued  until 
the  end. 

Nothing  could  be  duller  than  remaining  on  the  Sabbath  in  a 
country  inn  of  that  time  after  adjournment  of  court.     Good  cheer 

had  expended  its  force  during 
court  week,  and  blank  dulness 
succeeded;  but  Lincoln  would 
entertain  the  few  lingering 
roustabouts  of  the  bar-room 
with  as  great  zest,  apparently, 
as  he  had  previously  enter- 
tained the  court  and  bar,  and 
then  would  hitch  up  his  horse, 
"  Old  Tom,  "  as  he  was  called, 
and,  solitary  and  alone,  ride 
off  to  the  next  term  in  course. 
One  would  naturally  sup- 
pose that  the  leading  lawyer  of  the  circuit,  in  a  pursuit  which 
occupied  nearly  half  his  time,  would  make  himself  comfortable, 
but  he  did  not.  His  horse  was  as  raw-boned  and  weird-looking 
as  himself,  and  his  buggy,  an  open  one,  as  rude  as  either ;  his  at- 
tire was  that  of  an  ordinary  farmer  or  stock-raiser,  while  the  sum- 
total  of  his  baggage  consisted  of  a  very  attenuated  carpet-bag,  an 
old  weather-beaten  umbrella,  and  a  short  blue  cloak  reaching  to 
his  hips — a  style  which  was  prevalent  during  the  Mexican  War.  .  .  . 
He  was  utterly  indifferent  as  to  the  appearance  or  merits  of 


Harrison  inaugurated  President  and  died.  1841 

Vice-President  Tyler  became  President  .  .  .  1041 

First  line  of  telegraph  completed 1844 

First  telegraphic  message  sent.  May  ;i4  .  .  .  1844 

Polk  made  President 1845 

President    signs    bill    for     annexation    of 

Texas 1845 

Discovery  of   ether  by  Morton 1845 

Oregon  boundary  settled  by  treaty 1846 

Elias  Howe  invents  the  sewing-machire  .  .  1846 

War  declared  against  Mexico  (May  13  '  .  .  .  1846 

Mexican  War 1846  and  1847 

Peace  treaty  with  Mexico  (February  2).  .  .  .  1848 

Discovery   of  gold  in    California    (Spring)  1848 

Mormons  emigrate  to  Utah 1848 

Emigrants    and    adventurers   go   to    Cali- 
fornia    1849 

Taylor  made  President 1849 

Death  of  President  Taylor  (July  9) 1850 

Fugitive   Slave   Law   (in  "Omnibus   Bill")  1850 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  215 

any  tavern  or  place  he  stopped  at ;  it  was  a  matter  of  no  consequence 
to  him  whether  a  caravansary  was  good,  bad,  or  indifferent — the 
chief  soHcitude  with  him  was  the  magnitude  of  the  bill,  for  from 
necessity  he  was  very  prudent  in  his  expenditures,  and  so  would 
stop  at  the  cheaper  taverns.  He  did  not,  however,  violate  good 
policy  in  that  regard,  and  whenever  it  was  convenient,  roomed  with 
the  judge  while  out  on  the  circuit,  the  general  knowledge  of  this 
fact  being  helpful  in  the  way  of  securing  business  from  people  who 
argued  therefrom  that  advantages,  accrued  to  him  in  consequence.  . 
The  judge  told  me  he  never  saw  Lincoln  angry  at  poor  accom- 
modations on  the  circuit  but  once.  They  arrived  at  Charleston  on 
a  cold,  wet  afternoon,  chilled  through  and  uncomfortable ;  the  land- 
lord was  away;  there  were  no  fires  nor  wood.  Lincoln  was  thor- 
oughly incensed;  he  threw  off  his  coat,  went  to  the  woodpile,  and 
cut  wood  with  an  ax  for  an  hour.  Davis  built  a  fire  and  when  the 
landlord  made  his  appearance  late,  Lincoln  gave  him  a  good  scoring. 

LiiKoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  189. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  Surprises  Her  Husband 

Returning  from  one  of  his  trips  (on  the  Eighth  Circuit)  late  one 
night,  Mr.  Lincoln  dismounted  from  his  horse  at  the  familiar  corner 
and  then  turned  to  go  into  the  house,  but  stopped — a  perfectly 
unknown  structure  stood  before  him. 

Surprised,  ....  he  went  across  the  way  and  knocked  at 
a  neighbor's  door.     The  family  had  retired,  and  so  called  out : 

"Who's  there.?" 

"Abe  Lincoln, "  was  the  reply.  "I  am  looking  for  my  hoUse. 
I  thought  it  was  across  the  way,  but  when  I  went  away  a  few  weeks 
ago  there  was  only  a  one-story  house  there,  and  now  it  is  two.  I 
must  be  lost. " 

His  neighbors  then  explained  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  added 
another  story  during  his  absence.  Mr.  Lincoln  laughed  and  went 
to  his  remodeled  house. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  98. 

"The  Story  Was  Worth  the  Money" 

The  court-houses  in  which  Lincoln  practised  were  stiff,  old- 
fashioned  w^ood  or  brick  structures,  usually  capped  by  cupola  or 
tower,  and  fronted  by  verandas  with  huge  Doric  or  Ionic  pillars .    .    , 


(ai6) 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  217 

Few  of  the  lawyers  had  offices  in  the  town;  and  a  comer  of  the 
court-room,  the  shade  of  a  tree  in  the  court-yard,  a  sunny  side  of 
the  building,  were  where  they  met  their  clients  and  transacted 
business. 

In  the  courts  themselves  there  was  a  certain  indifference  to 
formality  engendered  by  the  primitive  surroundings,  which,  how- 
ever, the  judges  never  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  seriousness  of 
the  work. 

Lincoln  habitually,  when  not  busy,  whispered  stories  to  his 
neighbors,  frequently  to  the  annoyance  of  Judge  Davis.  If  Lincoln 
persisted  too  long  the  judge  would  rap  on  the  chair  and  exclaim : 

"Come,  come,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  can't  stand  this!  There  is  no  use 
trying  to  carry  on  two  courts;  I  must  adjourn  mine  or  you  yours, 
and  I  think  you  will  have  to  be  the  one.  " 

As  soon  as  the  group  had  scattered,  the  judge  would  call  one 
of  the  men  to  him  and  ask : 

"What  was  that  Lincoln  was  telling?" 

"  I  was  never  fined  but  once  for  contempt  of  court, "  says  one 
of  the  clerks  of  the  court  in  Lincoln's  day.  "Davis  fined  me  five 
dollars.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  just  come  in,  and  leaning  over  my  desk, 
had  told  me  a  story  so  irresistibly  funny  that  I  broke  out  into  a  loud 
laugh.  The  judge  called  me  to  order.  'This  must  be  stopped,  Mr. 
Lincoln,  you  are  constantly  disturbing  this  court  with  your  stories.' 
Then  to  me,  'You  may  fine  yourself  five  dollars  for  your  dis- 
turbance. ' 

"I  apologized,  but  told  the  judge  that  the  story  was  worth  the 
money.     In  a  few  minutes  the  judge  called  me  to  him. 

'"What  was  the  story  Lincoln  told  you?'     he  asked. 

"  I  told  him  and  he  laughed  aloud  in  spite  of  himself. 

"  'Remit  your  fine,'  he  ordered.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  24s. 

Lincoln  Was  Never  a  Clown  or  Court  Jester 

Lincoln  was  a  wit,  and,  as  Ingersoll  said,  he  used  any  word 
"which  wit  could  disinfect,  "  but  his  reputation  has  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  writers  who  have  employed  stories  as  stop-gaps  in  their 
information.  Of  course,  it  is  far  easier  and  more  amusing  to  attrib- 
ute a  lively  story  to  Lincoln  than  to  give  a  true  picture  of  the  man ; 


2l8 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


but  the  compilations  which  have  been  evolved  on  this  principle,  and 
which  picture  his  life  on  the  circuit  as  a  round  of  story -telling,  are 
made  of  whole  cloth — some  of  which  is  stolen  goods. 

"  Nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  to  picture  Lincoln  as  a 
combination  of  buffoon  and  drummer,"  protested  one  of  his  sur- 
viving  contemporaries 

pgm^ "■ — 


while  discussing  this 
subject  with  the  writer. 
"  He  was  frequently  the 
life  of  our  little  com- 
pany, keeping  us  good- 
natured,  making  us  see 
the  funny  side  of 
things,  and  generally 
entertaining  us ;  but  to 
create  the  impression 
that  the  circuit  was  a 
circus  of  which  Lincoln 
was  the  clown  is  ri- 
diculous. He  was  a 
lawyer,  engaged  in 
serious  and  dignified 
work,  and  a  man  who 
felt  his  responsibility 
keenly." 

.  .  .  When  Mr. 
Lincoln  first  stayed  at 
the  National  Hotel  [in 
Bloomington]  where 
all  the  lawyers  used 
to  stop ....  and  for 
six  or  seven  years 
afterwards,  Mr.  James 
Ewing,  of  the  Illinois 

bar,  saw  and  heard  him  in  the  company  of  his  associates  almost 

every  term  of  court. 

"In  all  my  experience,"  Mr.  Ewing  informed  the  writer,  "I 

never  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  tell  a  story  for  its  own  sake  or  simply  to 

raise  a  laugh.     He  used  stories  to  illustrate  a  point,  but  the  idea  that 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 

Whose  story,  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  begun  as  a  serial  in  the 
"National  Era"  in  1851,  did  much  to  arouse  and  unite  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  throughout  the  North.  Lincoln  once 
introduced  her  as  "the  little  woman  that  caused  the  War." 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  219 

he  sat  around  and  matched  yams  like  a  commercial  traveler  is 
utterly  false.  I  never  knew  him  to  do  such  a  thing,  and  I  had 
ample  opportunity  for  noting  him. 

"  Lincoln  would  soon  have  become  a  bore  if  he  had  traded  on 
his  story -telling  gifts,  "  remarked  another  authority.  "  He  traveled 
with  the  same  men  day  after  day,  week  after  week,  and  month  after 
month.  Even  if  his  fund  of  anecdotes  could  have  stood  the  strain, 
we  should  not  have  been  able  to  endure  it,  for  no  man  exhausts 
himself  or  others  so  quickly  as  your  professional  funny  man.  " 

But  those  who  have  depicted  Lincoln  on  the  circuit  as  a  sort  of 
end-man  with  an  itinerant  minstrel  show  have  also  done  a  similar 
injustice  to  [Judge  David]  Davis 

Undoubtedly  Davis  enjoyed  a  good  story,.  .  .  .but  to  sup- 
pose that  a  man  of  his  ability  would  select  a  mere  jester  for  a  friend, 
or  that  Lincoln  would  have  consented  to  serve  as  a  court  fool,  is 
preposterous 

It  was  Judge  Davis  and  a  handful  of  men  who  had  learned  to 
know  and  appreciate  Lincoln  as  a  lawyer — a  small  group  of  his 
fellow  practitioners  on  the  Eighth  Circuit ;  Davis,  the  judge ;  Swett 
the  advocate,  and  Logan,  the  leader  of  the  bar,  but  especially  Davis 
— ^who  forced  Lincoln  upon  the  Chicago  Convention  in  i860,  and 
thus  gave  him  to  the  nation. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  192. 

"  Why  Didn't  You  Go  at  Him  with  the  Other  End  ?  " 

Stories  are  more  interesting  than  logic  and  far  more  effective 
with  the  average  audience,  and  Lincoln's  juries  usually  heard  some- 
thing from  him  in  the  way  of  an  apt  comparison  or  illustration 
which  impressed  his  point  upon  their  minds. 

On  one  occasion  when  he  was  defending  a  case  of  assault  and 
battery  it  was  proved  that  the  plaintiff  had  been  the  aggressor,  but 
the  opposing  counsel  argued  that  the  defendant  might  have  pro- 
tected himself  without  inflicting  injuries  on  his  assailant. 

"  That  reminds  me  of  the  man  who  was  attacked  by  a  farmer's 
dog,  which  he  killed  with  a  pitchfork, "  commented  Lincoln. 

"  'What  made  you  kill  my  dog? "  demanded  the  farmer. 

"  'What  made  him  try  to  bite  me? "  retorted  the  offender. 
'But  why  didn't  you  go  at  him  with  the  other  end  of  the 
pitchfork? "  persisted  the  farmer. 


220  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  'Well,  why  didn't  he  come  at  me  with  his  other  end?"  was 
the  retort. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  217, 

"  Lincoln,  I  Thought  You  "Was  a  Lawyer  " 

Lincoln  not  only  made  effective  use  of  stories  with  the  jury, 
but  frequently  employed  them  in  arguing  to  the  court,  and  he  once 
completely  refuted  a  contention  that  custom  makes  law  with  an 
anecdote  drawn  from  his  own  experience : 

"  Old  Squire  Bagley  from  Menard,  once  came  into  my  office 
and  said,  'Lincoln,  I  want  your  advice  as  a  lawyer.  Has  a  man 
what's  been  elected  a  justice  of  the  peace  a  right  to  issue  a 
marriage  license?' 

"  I  told  him  he  had  not. 

"  'Lincoln,  I  thought  you  was  a  lawyer,'  he  retorted.  'Bob 
Thomas  and  me  had  a  bet  on  this  thing,  and  we  agreed  to  let  you 
decide  it;  but  if  thet  is  your  opinion,  I  don't  want  it,  fer  I  know  a 
thunderin'  sight  better.  I've  been  Squire  now  for  eight  years,  and 
I've  done  it  all  the  time !' "  .... 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  218. 

"He  Never  Put  No  Meanin'  into  Kis  Stories" 

"Ever  hear  Judge  Weldon  tell  that  story  about  what  Lincoln 
said  one  day  up  to  Bloomington  when  they  was  takin '  up  a  subscrip- 
tion to  buy  Jim  Wheeler  a  new  pair  of  pants?  No?  Well,  perhaps 
I  oughtn't  to  tell  it  to  you.  Ma  says  it  ain't  nice  It  makes  me  mad 
to  hear  people  objectin'  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  stories.  Maybe  he  did 
say  words  you  wouldn't  expect  to  hear  at  a  Church  supper,  but 
he  never  put  no  meanin'  into  'em  that  wouldn't  'a'  been  fit  for  the 
minister  to  put  into  a  sermon,  and  that 's  a  blamed  sight  more'n  you 
can  say  of  a  lot  of  stories  I've  heard  some  of  the  people  tell  who 
stick  up  their  noses  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  yarns.  " 

He  Knew  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  7. 


<<1 


'Fairly  Entitled "  to  the  Prize 

Mr.  Lincoln  enjoyed  a  joke  at  his  own  expense.     Said  he : 

"  In  the  davs  when  I  used  to  be  on  the  circuit,  I  was  accosted  in 

0 


STATE  CAPITAL  ANiO  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  221 

the  cars  by  a  stranger  who  said,  'Excuse  me,  sir,  but  I  have  an 
article  in  my  possession  which  belongs  to  you.* 

"'How  is  that?'  I  asked,  considerably  astonished. 

"  The  stranger  took  a  jack-knife  from  his  pocket.  'This  knife,' 
said  he,  'was  placed  in  my  hands  some  years  ago,  with  the  injunction 
that  I  was  to  keep  it  until  I  found  a  man  uglier  than  myself.  I  have 
carried  it  from  that  time  to  this.  Allow  me  to  say,  sir,  that  I  think 
you  are  fairly  entitled  to  the  property.'  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  130. 

"Tell  the  Judge  That  My  Hands  Are  Dirty" 

On  another  occasion,  when  it  developed  that  his  client  had 
indulged  in  fraudulent  practices,  he  walked  out  of  the  court-room 
and  refused  to  continue  the  case.  The  judge  sent  a  messenger, 
directing  him  to  return,  but  he  positively  declined. 

"  Tell  the  judge  that  my  hands  are  dirty  and  I've  gone  to  wash 
them, "  was  his  disgusted  response. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer   Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  239. 


"Try  Your  Hand  at  Making  $600  in  Some  Other  Way" 

This  conduct  in  the  court-room  was  in  entire  keeping  with  his 
office  practice,  where  he  declined  time  and  again  to  undertake  the 
doubtful  causes,  discouraged  litigation  and  discountenanced  sharp 
practices. 

"Yes,  "  Mr.  Hemdon  reports  him  as  advising  a  client,  "we  can 
doubtless  gain  your  case  for  you ;  we  can  set  a  whole  neighborhood 
at  loggerheads;  we  can  distress  a  widowed  mother  and  her  six 
fatherless  children,  and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred  dollars  to 
which  you  seem  to  have  a  legal  claim,  but  which  rightfully  belongs, 
it  appears  to  me,  as  much  to  the  woman  and  her  children  as  it  does 
to  you. 

"You  must  remember,  however,  that  some  things  legally 
right  are  not  morally  right.  We  shall  not  take  your  case,  but  we 
will  give  you  a  little  advice  for  which  we  will  charge  you  nothing. 
You  seem  to  be  a  sprightly,  energetic  man.  We  would  advise  you 
to  try  your  hand  at  making  six  hundred  dollars  in  some  other  way.  " 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  239. 


222 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"Trusted  Providence  till  the  Britchen  Broke" 

In  the  campaign  of  1852,  Lincoln, 
in  reply  to  Douglas'  speech,  wherein  he 
spoke  of  confidence  in  Providence, 
replied : 

"Let  us  stand  by  our  candidate 
(General  Scott)  as  faithfully  as  he  has 
always  stood  by  our  country,  and  I 
much  doubt  if  we  do  not  perceive  a 
slight  abatement  of  Judge  Douglas's 
confidence  in  Providence,  as  well  as  the 
people. 

"I  suspect  that  confidence  is  not 
more  firmly  fixed  with  the  Judge 
than  it  was  with  the  old  woman  whose 
horse  ran  away  with  her  in  the  buggy. 
She  said  she  'trusted  in  Providence 
till  the  britchen  broke,'  and  then 
she  'didn't  know  what  on  airth  to 
do!'" 

"  Abe"  Lincoln  s  Yarns  and  Stories, "EAiteAhy  Co\.  KXeii. 
K.  McClure,  page  289. 

"Skin  Defendant.     Close" 

A  successful  jury  lawyer  must  needs  be  something  of  an  actor 
at  times,  and  during  his  apprentice  years  Lincoln  displayed  no  little 
histrionic  ability  in  his  passionate  appeals  to  the  juries.  Indeed, 
his  notes  in  the  Wright  case  show  that  he  occasionally  reverted  to 
first  principles  even  after  he  had  reached  the  age  of  discretion. 
This  case  was  brought  on  behalf  of  the  widow  of  a  Revolutionary 
soldier  whose  pension  had  been  cut  in  two  by  a  rapacious  agent, 
who  appropriated  half  the  sum  collected  for  his  alleged  services. 
The  facts  aroused  Lincoln's  indignation,  and  his  memorandum  for 
summing  up  to  the  jury  ran  as  follows : 

No  contract.  Not  professional  services.  Unreasonable  charge. 
Money  retained  by  defendant — not  given  by  plaintiff.  Revolutionary 
War.  Describe  Valley  Forge  privations.  Ice.  Soldiers' bleeding  feet. 
Plaintiff's  husband.  Soldier  leaving  home  for  army.  Skin  De- 
fendant.    Close.'" 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  223 

Mr.  Herndon,  who  quotes  this  memorandum,  testifies  that  the 
soldiers'  bleeding  feet  and  other  pathetic  properties  were  handled 
very  effectively,  and  the  defendant  was  skinned  to  the  entire 
satisfaction  of  the  jury.  It  was  only  occasionally,  however,  that 
Lincoln  indulged  in  fervid  oratory,  and  his  advice  to  Herndon  shows 
his  belief  in  simplicity  and  reserve. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  215. 

"We  Never  Kill  Less" 

Returning  from  off  the  circuit  once  he  said  to  Mr.  Herndon : 

"  Billy,  I  heard  a  good  story  while  I  was  up  in  the  country. 

Judge  D was  complimenting  the    landlord  on  the  excellence 

of  his  beef.  'I  am  surprised,'  he  said,  'that  you  have  such 
good  beef.  You  must  have  to  kill  a  whole  critter  when  you  want 
any.' 

"'Yes,'  said  the  landlord,  'we  never  kill  less  than  a  whole 
critter.'  " 

Herndon  s  Lincoln,  William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  317. 

"Don't  Shoot  Too  High" 

"Don't  shoot  too  high,"  Herndon  reports  him  as  saying. 
"Aim  lower  and  the  common  people  will  understand  you.  They 
are  the  ones  you  want  to  reach — at  least  they  are  the  ones  you 
ought  to  reach.  The  educated  and  refined  people  will  understand 
you,  anyway.  If  you  aim  too  high,  your  ideas  will  go  over  the 
heads  of  the  masses  and  only  hit  those  who  need  no  hitting. "... 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  216. 

"Abe's  Got  That  Fool  Idee  in  His  Head" 

William  G.  Greene  was  going  to  Kentucky  on  a  visit,  and  as 
his  way  would  lie  near  to  where  Thomas  Lincoln  lived,  Abraham 
requested  him  to  visit  his  father  and  deliver  a  letter.  Greene  did  so, 
and  as  he  approached  the  cabin  just  before  nightfall,  his  heart  sank 
within  him,  for  he  beheld  the  most  wretched  hovel  he  had  en- 
countered in  his  journey.  It  was  without  a  stable  or  outhouse  of 
any  kind,  and  not  a  shrub  or  tree  was  in  sight. 

The  proprietor  appeared  and,  as  soon  as  he  learned  the  situa- 
tion, exclaimed  cheerily: 

"Get  right  down  here.     You're  welcome,   heartily  welcome. 


224 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


I'm  right  glad  to  see  you.  I'll  make  you  and  your  beast  so  com- 
fortable that  you'll  stay  with  me  a  week.  Here's  just  the  place  to 
hitch  your  horse"  (indicating  a  log  of  the  cabin  with  a  projecting 
end);  "I  use  it  to  dress  deer-hides  on,  and  I've  got  an  iron  kettle 
here;  jest  the  thing  for  a  feed-trough,  and  lots  of  shelled  corn;  so 
all  you've  got  to  do  is  to  make  yourself  at  home  as  long  as  you  like.  " 
Greene  said  that  Thomas  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  shrewdest 


nrv\ 


INTERIOR  OF  THOMAS  LINCOLN'S  ILLINOIS  HOME 

The  remains  of  a  spinning  wheel  stood  in  the  corner.     This  belonged  to  Abraham's  stepmother, 
this  wheel  she  spun  jeans  to  make  his  clothes  while  a  youth,  and  dyed  them  with  walnut. 


With 


ignorant  men  he  ever  saw — that  he  took  in,  at  a  glance,  the  feelings 
of  dismay  which  possessed  the  stranger  as  he  rode  up  to  the  cabin, 
and  his  host  made  it  his  task  to  dispel  that  feeling,  and  he  did  it .  .  . 
Seated  before  the  rude  hearth,  Thomas  Lincoln  said  : 

"  I  s'pose  Abe's  still  a-foolin'  hisself  with  eddication.  I  tried  to 
stop  it,  but  he's  got  that  fool  idee  in  his  head  an'  it  can't  be  got  out. 
Now  I  hain't  got  no  eddication,  but  I  git  along  better  than  ef  I  had. 
Take  book-keepin' — ^why  I'm  the  best  book-keeper  in  the  world! 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  225 

Look  up  at  that  rafter  thar.  Ef  I  sell  a  peck  o'  meal  I  draw  a  black 
line  across,  an'  when  they  pay  I  take  the  dish-cloth  an'  jest  rub  it 
out ;  an'  that  thar's  a  heap  better'n  yer  eddication.  " 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  74. 

Abraham's  Masterful  Kindness  to  His  Stepbrother 

Abraham  never  lost  sight  of  his  parents.  He  continued  to  aid 
and  befriend  them  in  every  way,  even  when  he  could  ill  afford  it, 
and  when  his  benefactions  were  imprudently  used.  He  not  only 
comforted  their  declining  years  with  every  aid  his  affection  could 
suggest,  but  he  did  everything  in  his  power  to  assist  his  stepbrother 
Johnston — a  hopeless  task  enough.  The  following  rigidly  truthful 
letter  will  show  how  mentor-like  and  masterful,  as  well  as  generous, 
were  the  relations  that  Mr.  Lincoln  held  to  these  friends  and  com- 
panions of  his  childhood : 

''Dear  Johnston:  Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do  not  think 
it  best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the  various  times  when  I  have 
helped  you  a  little,  you  have  said  to  me,  'we  can  get  along  very 
well  now,'  but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find  you  in  the  same  difficulty 
again.  Now  this  can  only  happen  by  some  defect  in  your  conduct. 
What  that  defect  is  I  think  I  know.  You  are  not  lazy,  and  still  you 
are  an  idler 

"You  are  now  in  need  of  some  money;  and  what  I  propose  is, 
that  you  shall  go  to  work  'tooth  and  nail'  for  somebody  who  will 
give  you  money  for  it.  Let  Father  and  the  boys  take  charge  of 
things  at  home,  prepare  for  a  crop,  and  make  the  crop ;  and  you  go 
to  work  for  the  best  money  wages — or  in  discharge  of  any  debt — 
that  you  can  get ;  and  to  secure  you  a  fair  rew^ard  for  your  labor, 
I  now  promise  you  that  for  every  dollar  you  will,  between  this  and 
the  first  of  next  May,  get  for  your  own  labor,  either  as  money  or  as 
discharging  your  own  indebtedness,  I  will  give  you  one  other  dollar. 
By  this,  if  you  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me  you  will 
get  ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  your  work.  In 
this  I  do  not  mean  you  should  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or  the  lead  mines, 
or  the  gold  mines  of  California,  but  I  mean  for  you  to  go  at  it  for  the 
best  wages  you  can  get  close  to  home,  in  Coles  County 

"You  say  you  would  almost  give  your  place  in  heaven  for  sev- 
enty or  eighty  dollars.  Then  you  value  your  place  in  heaven  very 
If 


2  26  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you  can,  with  the  offer  I  make,  get  the  seventy 
or  eighty  dollars  for  four  or  five  months'  work.  You  say  if  I  will 
furnish  you  the  money  you  will  deed  me  the  land,  and  if  you  don't 
pay  the  money  back  you  will  deliver  possession.  Nonsense.  If  you 
can't  now  live  with  the  land,  how  will  you  then  live  without  it?  You 
have  always  been  kind  to  me,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind  to 
you.  On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  but  follow  my  advice,  you  will 
find  it  worth  more  than  eighty  times  eighty  dollars  to  you." 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  74. 

"  He  Will  Not  Forget  the  Dying  Man  " 

Lincoln  wrote  the  following  at  the  close  of  a  letter  to  his  step- 
brother, John  Johnston,  regarding  his  father who  was  ill: 

"  I  sincerely  hope  Father  may  yet  recover  his  health;  but  at  all 
events,  tell  him  to  remember  to  call  upon,  and  confide  in,  our  great 
and  merciful  Maker,  who  will  not  turn  away  from  him  in  any 
extremity.  He  notes  the  fall  of  the  sparrow,  and  numbers  the  hairs 
of  our  heads,  and  He  will  not  forget  the  dying  man  who  puts  his 
trust  in  Him.  Say  to  him  that,  if  we  could  meet  now,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  it  would  be  more  painful  than  pleasant,  but  if  it  is  his  lot  to 
go  now,  he  will  soon  have  a  joyful  meeting  with  loved  ones  gone 
before,  and  where  the  rest  of  us,  through  the  mercy  of  God,  hope 
ere  long  to  join  them.  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  254. 

Death  of  Thomas  Lincoln— Another  Letter  to  Johnston 

Thomas  Lincoln's  final  move  was  to  Goose  Nest  Prairie,  where 
he  died  in  185 1,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three  years,  after  a  life  which, 
though  not  successful  in  any  material  or  worldly  point  of  view,  was 
probably  far  happier  than  that  of  his  illustrious  son,  being  unvexed 
by  enterprise  or  ambition. 

Here  is  a  later  epistle,  still  more  graphic  and  terse  in  statement, 
which  has  the  unusual  merit  of  painting  both  confessor  and  penitent 
to  the  life : 

"Shelbyville,  Nov.  4,  1851. 

''Dear  Brother:  When  I  came  into  Charleston,  day  before 
yesterday,  I  heard  that  you  were  anxious  to  sell  the  land  where  you 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT 


227 


live  and  move  to  Missouri.  I  have  been  thinking  of  this  ever  since, 
and  cannot  but  think  such  a  notion  is  utterly  foolish.  What  can 
you  do  in  Missouri  better  than  here?  Is  the  land  any  richer?  Can 
you  there,  any  more  than  here,  raise  corn  and  wheat  and  oats  with- 
out work?  Will  anybody  there,  any  more  than  here,  do  your  work 
for  you?  If  you  intend  to  go  to  work  there  is  no  better  place  than 
right  where  you  are ;  if  you  do  not  intend  to  go  to  work,  you  cannot 
get  along  anywhere.  Squirming  and  crawling  about  from  place  to 
place  can  do  no  good.  You  have  raised  no  crop  this  year,  and  what 
you  really  want  is  to  sell  the  land,  get  the  money  and  spend  it. 


HOUSE  IN  WHICH  THOMAS  LINCOLN  DIED,  IN  COLES  COUNTY,  ILLINOIS 

Part  with  the  land  you  have,  and,  my  life  upon  it,  you  will  never 
after  own  a  spot  big  enough  to  bury  you  in.  Half  you  will  get  for 
the  land  you  will  spend  in  moving  to  Missouri,  and  the  other  half 
you  will  eat  and  drink  and  wear  out,  and  no  foot  of  land  will  be 
bought. 

"Now,  I  feel  it  is  my  duty  to  have  no  hand  in  such  a  piece  of 
foolery.  I  feel  that  it  is  so  even  on  your  own  account,  and  particu- 
larly on  Mother's  account.  The  eastern  forty  acres  I  intend  to  keep 
for  Mother  while  she  lives ;  if  you  will  not  cultivate  it,  it  will  rent  for 
enough  to  support  her;  at  least  it  will  rent  for  something.     Her 


2  28  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

dower  in  the  other  two  forties  she  can  let  you  have,  and  no  thanks 
tome.  ^i-tw;^ 

' '  Now  do  not  misunderstand  this  letter.  '  I'do  not  write  it  in  any 
unkindness.  I  write  it  in  order,  if  possible,  to  get  you  to  face  the 
truth,  which  truth  is,  you  are  destitute  because  you  have  idled  away 
all  your  time.  Your  thousand  pretenses  deceive  nobody  but  your- 
self.    Go  to  work  is  the  only  cure  for  your  case." 

A  volume  of  disquisition  could  not  put  more  clearly  before  the 
reader  the  difference  between  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  common 
run  of  Southern  and  Western  rural  laborers.  He  had  the  same  dis- 
advantages that  they  had.  He  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  poverty  and 
ignorance;  he  was  poisoned  with  the  enervating  malaria  of  the 
Western  woods,  as  all  his  fellows  were,  and  the  consequences  of  it 
were  seen  in  his  character  and  conduct  to  the  close  of  his  life.  But 
he  had,  what  very  few  of  them  had  any  glimmering  notion  of,  a 
fixed  and  inflexible  will  to  succeed.  He  did  not  love  work,  prob- 
ably, any  better  than  John  Johnston ;  but  he  had  an  innate  self- 
respect,  and  a  consciousness  that  his  self  was  worthy  of  respect, 
that  kept  him  from  idleness  as  it  kept  him  from  all  other  vices,  and 
made  him  a  better  man  every  year  that  he  lived. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  76. 

Defends  His  Stepmother  from  Her  Own  Son 

From  the  following  letter  in  possession  of  the  writer,  written  to 
his  stepbrother,  her  own  son,  it  will  be  seen  that  Lincoln  was  more 
chary  of  his  stepmother's  rights  than  her  own  flesh  and  blood.  It 
bears  the  superscription,  "John  D.  Johnston,  Charleston,  Coles 
County,  Illinois,"  and  is  dated,  "Springfield,  Nov.  25,  1851,"  and 
reads  as  follows : 

''Dear  Brother:  Your  letter  of  the  22nd  is  just  received.  Your 
proposal  about  selling  the  east  forty  acres  of  land  is  all  that  I  want 
or  could  claim  for  myself,  but  I  am  not  satisfied  with  it  on  Mother's 
account.  I  want  her  to  have  her  living,  and  I  feel  that  it  is  my  duty, 
to  some  extent,  to  see  that  she  is  not  wronged.  She  had  a  right  of 
dower  (that  is  the  use  of  one-third  for  life)  in  the  other  two  forties, 
but  it  seems  she  has  already  let  you  take  that,  hook  and  line.  She 
now  has  the  use  of  the  whole  east  forty,  as  long  as  she  lives ;  and  if 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  229 

it  be  sold  of  course  she  is  entitled  to  the  interest  on  all  the  money  it 
brings  as  long  as  she  lives;  but  you  propose  to  sell  it  for  three 
hundred  dollars,  take  one  hundred  away  with  you,  and  leave  her 
two  hundred,  at  8  per  cent.,  making  her  the  enormous  sum  of  sixteen 
dollars  a  year !  Now,  if  you  are  satisfied  with  treating  her  in  that 
way,  I  am  not.  It  is  true,  that  you  are  to  have  that  forty  for  two 
hundred  dollars  at  Mother's  death ;  but  you  are  not  to  have  it  before. 
I  am  confident  that  the  land  can  be  made  to  produce  for  Mother  at 
least  $30  a  year,  and  I  cannot,  to  oblige  any  living  person,  consent 
that  she  shall  be  put  on  an  allowance  of  sixteen  dollars  a  year. 

"Yours,  etc.,    • 

"A.  Lincoln." 

A  Biographical  Sketch  of  His  Excellency  Abraham  Lincoln,  Late  President  of  the  United  States, 
Charles  Henry  Hart,  LL.  B.,  page  5. 

Always  Glad  to  See  and  to  Help  His  "Poor  Relations" 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  traits  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  his  consid- 
erate regard  for  the  poor  and  obscure  relatives  he  had  left  plodding 
along  in  their  humble  ways  of  life.  Wherever  upon  his  circuit  he 
found  them,  he  always  went  to  their  dwellings,  ate  with  them, 
and,  when  convenient,  made  their  houses  his  home.  He  never  as- 
sumed in  their  presence  the  slightest  superiority  to  them,  in  the 
facts  and  conditions  of  his  life.  He  gave  them  money  when  they 
needed  and  he  possessed  it. 

Countless  times  he  was  known  to  leave  his  companions  at  the 
village  hotel,  after  a  hard  day's  work  in  the  court-room,  and  spend 
the  evening  with  these  old  friends  and  companions  of  his  humbler 
days.     . 

A  little  fact  in  this  connection  will  illustrate  his  ever-present 
desire  to  deal  honestly  and  justly  with  men.  He  had  always  a 
partner  in  his  professional  life,  and,  when  he  went  out  upon  the 
circuit,  this  partner  was  usually  at  home.  While  out,  he  frequently 
took  up  and  disposed  of  cases  that  were  never  entered  at  the  office. 

In  these  cases,  after  receiving  his  fees,  he  divided  the  money  in 
his  pocket-book,  labeling  each  sum  (wrapped  in  a  piece  of  paper,) 
that  belonged  to  his  partner,  stating  his  name,  and  the  case  on 
which  it  was  received.  He  could  not  be  content  to  keep  an  account. 
He  divided  the  money  so  that  if  he,  by  any  casualty,  should  fail 
of  an  opportunity  to  pay  it  over,  there  could  be  no  dispute  as  to  the 


230  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

exact  amount  that  was  his  partner's  due.    This  seems  trivial,  nay 
boyish,  but  it  was  Hke  Mr.  Lincoln. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  8$. 

"Why,  Aunt's  Heart  Would  Be  Broken !" 

I  may  take  occasion  to  say  here  that  Abe  ....  never  put 
on  airs  because  of  his  elevation,  nor  looked  down  upon  the  humble 
relatives  whom  he  had  left  behind.  Whenever  in  his  journey ings  he 
found  himself  near  the  residence  of  any  of  his  poorer  relatives,  he 
took  special  pains  to  visit  them,  and,  if  possible,  to  stay  with  them. 
Often  he  pressed  upon  them  money  when  they  appeared  to  need 
it — not  with  the  air  of  a  liberal  patron,  but  with  straightforward 
friendliness  and  cordiality.  Once  when  he  was  urged  to  remain  at 
the  hotel  with  his  professional  friends,  instead  of  making  a  call  on 
an  aged  aunt,  he  said : 

"Why,  Aunt's  heart  would  be  broken  if  I  should  leave  town 
without  calling  upon  her." 

Let  me  add  that  this  required  something  more  than  ordinary 
good-natured  consideration,  for  the  aunt  in  question  lived  several 
miles  away,  and  her  nephew  had  no  horse  at  his  command,  but 
walked  all  the  way. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Backwoods  Boy,  Horatio  Alger,  Jr.,  page  113. 

The  " Pink-and- White  Runaway" 

His  sensitiveness  to  a  child's  wants  made  Mr.  Lincoln  a  most 
indulgent  father.  He  continually  carried  his  boys  about  with  him, 
and  their  pranks,  even  when  they  approached  rebellion,  seemed  to  be 
an  endless  delight  to  him.  Like  most  boys,  they  loved  to  run  away, 
and  the  neighbors  of  the  Lincolns  tell  many  tales  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
captures  of  the  culprits.  One  of  the  prettiest  of  all  these  is  a  story 
of  an  escape  Willie  once  made,  when  three  or  four  years  old,  from 
the  hands  of  his  mother,  who  was  giving  him  a  tubbing.  He  scam- 
pered out  of  the  door  without  a  vestige  of  a  garment  on  him,  flew  up 
the  street,  slipped  under  a  fence  into  a  great  green  field,  and  took 
across  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  sitting  on  the  porch,  and  discovered  the  pink- 
and-white  runaway,  as  he  was  cutting  across  the  greensward.  He 
stood  up,  laughing  aloud,  while  the  mother  entreated  him  to  go  in 
pursuit;  then  he  started  in  chase.     Half-way  across  the  field  he 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  231 

caught  the  child,  and  gathering  him  up  in  his  long  arms,  he  covered 
his  rosy  form  with  kisses.  Then  mounting  him  on  his  back,  the 
chubby  legs  around  his  neck,  he  rode  him  back  to  his  mother  and 
his  tub. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  235. 

Had  to  Withdraw  the  "Colt" 

Mr.  Alcott,  of  Elgin,  Illinois,  tells  of  seeing  Mr.  Lincoln  coming 
away  from  church  unusually  early  one  Sunday  morning. 

"The  sermon  could  not  have  been  more  than  half  through," 
says  Mr.  Alcott.  "  'Tad'  was  slung  across  his  father's  left  arm  like 
a  pair  of  saddle-bags,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  striding  along  with  delib- 
erate steps  toward  his  home. 

"On  one  of  the  street  comers  he  encountered  a  group  of  his 
fellow-townsmen.  Mr.  Lincoln  anticipated  the  question  that  was 
about  to  be  put  by  the  group,  and,  taking  his  figure  of  speech  from 
practices  with  which  they  were  only  too  familiar,  said : 

"  'Gentlemen,  I  entered  this  colt,  but  he  kicked  around  so  I  had 
to  withdraw  him. '  " 

"Abe"'  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  197. 


"  The  Matter  with  the  Whole  World  " 

It  was  a  frequent  custom  with  Lincoln,  this  of  carrying  his 
children  on  his  shoulders.  He  rarely  went  down  street  that  he  did 
not  have  one  of  his  younger  boys  mounted  on  his  shoulder,  while 
another  hung  to  the  tail  of  his  long  coat.  The  antics  of  the  boys 
with  their  father,  and  the  species  of  tyranny  they  exercised  over 
him,  are  still  subjects  of  talk  in  Springfield. 

Mr.  Roland  Diller,  who  was  a  neighbor  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  tells  one 
of  the  best  of  the  stories.  He  was  called  to  the  door  one  day  by 
hearing  a  great  noise  of  children  crying,  and  there  was  Mr.  Lincoln 
striding  by  with  the  boys,  both  of  them  were  wailing  aloud: 

"Why,  Mr.  Lincoln,  what's  the  matter  with  the  boys?"  he 
asked. 

"  Just  what's  the  matter  with  the  whole  world, "  Lincoln  replied ; 
"I've  got  three  walnuts  and  each  wants  two. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  236, 


232 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"It  Was  Just  Like  Him!" 

"My  first  strong  impression  of  Mr.  Lincoln,"  says  a  lady  of 
Springfield,  "was  made  by  one  of  his  kind  deeds.  I  was  going  with 
a  little  friend  for  my  first  trip  alone  on  the  railroad  cars.  It  was  a 
great  event  in  my  life.     I  had  planned  for  it  and  dreamed  of  it  for 

weeks.  The  day  came,  but 
as  train  time  approached, 
the  hackman,  through  some 
neglect,  failed  to  call  for 
my  trunk.  As  the  minutes 
went  on,  I  realized  in  a 
panic  of  grief,  that  I  should 
miss  the  train.  I  was 
standing  by  the  gate,  my 
hat  and  gloves  on,  sobbing 
as  if  my  heart  would  break, 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  came  by. 
'"Why,  what's  the 
matter?'  he  asked,  and  1 
poured  out  all  my  story. 

'"How  big's  the 
trunk?  There's  still  time, 
if  it  isn't  too  big.'  And  he 
pushed  through  the  gate 
and  up  to  the  door.  My 
mother  and  I  took  him  up 
to  my  room,  w^here  my  lit- 
tle old-fashioned  trunk 
stood,  locked  and  tied. 

'"Oh,   ho!   Wipe  your 
eyes  and  come  quick.' 
"And  before  I  knew  what  he  was  going  to  do,  he  had  shouldered 
the  trunk,  was  down  stairs,  and  striding  out  of  the  vard.     Down 
the  street  he  went,  as  fast  as  his  long  legs  could  carry  him.     I  trot- 
ted behind,  drying  my  tears  as  I  went. 

"  We  reached  the  station  in  time.     Mr.  Lincoln  put  me  on  the 
train,  kissed  me  good-bye,  and  told  me  to  have  a  good  time. 
"  It  was  just  like  him  !  " 

*'Ahe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories.  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  77- 


MILLARD  FILLMORE 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  233 


In  the  Court-Room  and  at  Home 

We  are  aware  that  these  stories  detract  something  from  the 
character  of  the  lawyer;  but  this  inflexible,  inconvenient,  and 
fastidious  morality  was  to  be  of  vast  service  afterwards  to  his 
country  and  the  world. 

The  Nemesis  that  waits  upon  men  of  extraordinary  wit  or 
humor  has  not  neglected  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  young  lawyers  of 
Illinois,  who  never  knew  him,  have  an  endless  store  of  jokes  and 
pleasantries  in  his  name;  some  of  them  as  old  as  Howleglass  or 
Rabelais. 

As  a  specim.en  we  give  the  following,  well  vouched  for,  as  such 
stories  generally  are :  Lincoln  met  one  day  on  the  court-house  steps 
a  young  lawyer  who  had  lost  his  case — his  only  one — and  looked 
very  disconsolate.  "What  has  become  of  your  case?"  Lincoln 
asked.  "Gone  to  hell,"  was  the  gloomy  response.  "Well,  don't 
give  it  up,"  Lincoln  rejoined  cheerfully;  "you  can  try  it  again 
there  " — a  quip  that  has  been  attributed  to  many  wits  in  many  ages, 
and  will  doubtless  make  the  reputation  of  jesters  yet  to  be 

Few  of  his  forensic  speeches  have  been  preserved,  but  his  con- 
temporaries all  agree  as  to  their  singular  ability  and  power.  He 
seemed  absolutely  at  home  in  a  court-room.  .  .  .  Sometimes  he 
disturbed  the  court  with  laughter  by  his  humorous  or  apt  illus- 
trations  but  his  usual  and  more  successful  manner  was  to 

rely  upon  a  clear,  strong,  lucid  statement,  keeping  details  in  proper 
subordination  and  bringing  forward,  in  a  way  which  fastened  the 
attention  of  court  and  jury  alike,  the  essential  point  on  which  he 
claimed  a  decision. 

"Indeed,"  says  one  of  his  colleagues,  "his  statement  often 
rendered  argument  unnecessary,  and  often  the  court  would  stop 
him,  and  say : 

^*  'If  that  is  the  case,  we  will  hear  the  other  side.'  " 

Whatever  doubts  might  be  entertained  as  to  w^hether  he  was  the 
ablest  lawyer  on  the  circuit,  there  was  never  any  dissent  from  the 
opinion  that  he  was  the  one  most  cordially  and  generally  liked.  If 
he  did  not  himself  enjoy  his  full  share  of  the  happiness  of  life,  he 
certainly  diffused  more  of  it  among  his  fellows  than  is  in  the  power 
of  most  men 

He  did  not  accumulate  wealth;  as  Judge  Davis  said,   "He 


LINCOLN,  THE  PLAIN  COUNTRY  LAWYER 


C234) 


STATE  CAPITAL  AND  EIGHTH  CIRCUIT  235 

seemed  never  to  care  for  it.  "  He  had  a  good  income  from  his  pro- 
fession, though  the  fees  he  received  would  bring  a  smile  to  the  well- 
paid  lips  of  the  great  attorneys  of  to-day.  The  largest  fee  he  ever 
got  was  oneof  $5000,  from  the  Illinois  Central  Railway,  and  he  had  to 
bring  suit  to  compel  them  to  pay  it.  He  spent  what  he  received  in 
the  education  of  his  children,  in  the  care  of  his  family,  and  in  a  plain 
and  generous  way  of  living. 

One  who  often  visited  him  writes,  referring  to  "the  old-fash- 
ioned hospitality  of  Springfield."  "Among  others  I  recall  with  a 
sad  pleasure,  the  dinners  and  evening  parties  given  by  Mrs.  Lincoln. 
In  her  modest  and  simple  home,  where  everything  was  so  orderly 
and  refined,  there  was  always  on  the  part  of  both  host  and  hostess  a 
cordial  and  hearty  Western  w^elcome  which  put  every  guest  per- 
fectly at  ease.  Their  table  was  famed  for  the  excellence  of  many 
rare  Kentucky  dishes,  and  for  the  venison,  wild  turkeys,  and  other 
game,  then  so  abundant.  Yet  it  was  her  genial  manner  and  ever- 
kind  welcome,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  wit  and  humor,  anecdote  and 
unrivaled  conversation,  which  formed  the  chief  attraction. " 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  I,  page  306. 

"Mr.  Lincoln  Was  the  Most  Loving  Husband  and  Father  in  the  World" 

After  his  admission  to  the  bar,  Lincoln  never  dabbled  in  farm- 
ing, trading,  or  speculating.  Besides  his  city  homestead  he  owned 
no  real-estate  except  a  lot  presented  to  him  in  the  town  of  Lincoln 
(Illinois) — named  in  his  honor — and  a  quarter  section  of  bounty 
land  granted  him  for  service  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 

During  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature  and  the  courts,  Mrs. 
Lincoln  in  these  years  was  wont  to  give  occasional  dinners  and 
evening  parties.  As  a  hostess  she  was  gracious  and  affable  as  well 
as  liberal;  perhaps  no  one  in  the  city  who  entertained  was  more 
generally  popular  than  she. 

While  her  father  lived  (his  death  occurred  in  1849)  there  w^ere 
visits  with  her  husband  to  Lexington,  Kentucky,  where  she  had  a 
number  of  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  half-blood.  When  there, 
Lincoln  would  naturally  call  on  Henry  Clay  if  he  was  at  the  time 
at  Ashland  (Clay's  home).  One  such  visit,  perhaps  it  was  the  only 
one,  has  been  mentioned  as  chilling  the  hero-worshiper's  devotion, 
if  not  effecting  a  complete  disillusion.     But  this  is  an  extravagant 


236  THE  STORY -LIFE  OP   LINCOLN 

overstatement,  if  it  has  any  basis  at  all.  There  may  have  been  an 
imexpected  distance  in  Clay's  manner,  .  .  .  yet  Lincoln  was  to 
the  last  an  admirer  of  the  great  orator  and  conciliator,  who  was  his 
earliest  political  master. 

At  the  time  of  his  election  to  Congress,  Robert  and  Edward 
were  his  only  children — the  former  born  August  i,  1843,  the  latter 
March  10,  1846.  His  family  were  with  him  during  part  of  his  first 
term  in  Washington.  "  Eddie"  died  February  i,  1850,  and  William 
was  born  the  2  ist  of  December  following.  The  youngest  child,  born 
April  4,  1853,  was  given  the  name  of  his  grandfather,  Thomas, 
though  he  was  commonly  called  "  Tad.  " 

Of  their  domestic  life,  according  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Hemdon,  Mrs. 
Lincoln  said : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  kindest  man  and  most  loving  husband 
and  father  in  the  world.     He  gave  us  all  unbounded  liberty.    .    .    . 
He  was  exceedingly  indulgent  to   his  children.    .    .    .    He  was  a 
terribly  firm  man  when  he  set  his  foot  down.     None  of  us — no  man 
or  woman — could  rule  him  after  he  had  once  made  up  his  mind.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  112. 


CHAPTER  IX 

Enters  Politics  Again 

Evolution  of  a  Great  Idea  in  Lincoln's  Mind 

Judge  T.  Lyle  Dickey  of  Illinois  once  told  the  Hon.  William  Pitt 
Kellogg  that  when  the  excitement  over  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
first  broke  out,  he  was  with  Lincoln  and  several  friends  attending 
court.  One  evening  several  persons,  including  himself  and  Lincoln, 
were  discussing  the  slavery  question.  Judge  Dickey  contended  that 
slavery  was  an  institution  which  the  Constitution  recognized,  and 
which  could  not  be  disturbed.  Lincoln  argued  that  ultimately 
slavery  must  become  extinct. 

"After  a  while,  "  said  Judge  Dickey,  "we  went  upstairs  to  bed. 
There  were  two  beds  in  our  room,  and  I  remember  that  Lincoln  sat 
up  in  his  nightshirt  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  arguing  the  point  with 
me.  At  last,  we  went  to  sleep.  Early  in  the  morning  I  woke  up 
and  there  was  Lincoln  half  sitting  up  in  bed. 

"  'Dickey,'  he  said,  'I  tell  you  this  nation  cannot  exist  half 
slave  and  half  free.' 

"Oh,  Lincoln,"  said  I,  "goto  sleep!" 

As  the  months  went  on  this  idea  took  deeper  root,  and  in 
August,  1855,  we  find  it  expressed  in  a  letter  to  George  Robertson 
of  Kentucky : 

"Our  political  problem  now  is,  'Can  we  as  a  nation  continue 
together  permanently— forever — half  slave  and  half  free?'  The 
problem  is  too  mighty  for  me.  May  God,  in  His  mercy,  superin- 
tend the  solution." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida.  M.Ta.The\l,  Vol.  I, -page  28t. 

Lincoln  Returns  to  Politics  after  the  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 

The  famous  Missouri  Compromise  was  repealed.  Almost  all  the 
Northern  people  now  began  to  feel  as  if  matters  were  coming  to  a 
serious  crisis,  and  that  some  determined  movement  must  be  made 
to  check  the  extension  of  slavery. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  very  indignant  at  the  passage  of  this  bill,  and 


238  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

thought  it  was  time  to  give  his  attention  again  to  political  matters. 
Illinois  was  to  send  a  new  Senator  to  Congress  in  place  of  General 
Shields,  whose  six  years  were  up 

Now  the  Legislature  which  was  to  choose  the  new  Senator  from 
Illinois  had  not  yet  been  elected.  So  Mr.  Lincoln  begged  the  people 
of  his  State  to  choose  such  a  Legislature  as  would  send  a  Senator  to 
Congress  who  would  oppose  Mr.  Douglas's  measures.  Mr.  Douglas, 
on  the  other  hand,  told  the  people  that  his  measures  were  all  right, 
and  that  Congress  had  no  power  to  make  a  law  that  slavery  should 
not  exist  in  a  certain  portion  of  the  United  States.  Thus  the  people 
listened  to  Mr.  Lincoln  one  day,  and  to  Mr.  Douglas  another  day. 

The  outcome  was  the  election  of  Judge  Trumbull  for  Senator, 
a  man  much  opposed  to  Mr.  Douglas's  bill.  A  great  part  of  the 
Legislature  would  have  preferred  Mr.  Lincoln  to  anybody  else ;  but 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself  thought  it  would  be  better  to  send  Judge  Trum- 
bull, and  it  was  through  his  influence  that  the  Judge  was  nominated. 

After  this,  the  people  of  Illinois  wanted  to  choose  Mr.  Lincoln 
as  Governor  of  the  State ;  but  he  did  not  wish  to  be  nominated. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam   page  75. 

"  Bleeding  Kansas  " 

In  1854  a  desperate  struggle  began  between  the  North  and  the 
South  for  the  possession  of  Kansas.  No  sooner  had  President  Pierce 
signed  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  thus  making  it  a  law,  than  bands 
of  men  armed  with  rifles  commenced  to  pour  into  the  Territory, 
resolved  to  win  it  either  by  fraud  or  by  force.  The  first  movement 
came  from  the  slaveholders  of  Missouri,  who  crossed  the  Missouri 
River  and  took  up  lands  in  the  new  Territory 

Next  the  New  England  Aid  Society  of  Boston  sent  out  a  body 
of  armed  emigrants,  who  settled  about  thirty  miles  farther  west,  and 
called  their  little  cluster  of  tents  and  log-cabins  Lawrence 

These  rival  sections  soon  set  up  governments  to  suit  themselves. 
The  Free-state  settlers  had  their  headquarters  at  Topeka  and 
Lawrence;  the  Slave-state  at  Leavenworth  and  Lecompton.  From 
1854  to  1859  that  part  of  the  country  suffered  so  much  from  the 
efforts  of  both  parties  to  get  control  that  it  fairly  earned  the  name  of 
"Bleeding  Kansas."  During  the  greater  part  of  five  years  the 
territory  was  torn  by  civil  war;  the  Free-state  men  denounced  the 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN 


239 


opposite  party  as  "  Border  Ruffians;"  the  "  Border  Ruffians"  called 
the  Free-state  men  "Abolitionists"  and  "Black  Republicans." 

In  the  course  of  this  period  of  violence  and  bloodshed  the  Slave- 
state  men  attacked  Lawrence,  plundered  the  town  and  burned  some 
of  its  chief  buildings. 

Leading  Facts  of  American  History,  D.  H.  Montgomery,  page  2']t. 


John  Brown  of  Osawatomie 

Among  all  the  brave  and  de- 
voted men  of  that  struggle,  none 
was  braver  or  more  devoted  and 
none  more  dreaded  by  the  "  Border 
Ruffians"  than  John  Brown  of 
Osawatomie.  He  no  more  forgave 
than  he  forgot  the  atrocious  mur- 
der of  one  of  his  sons,  and  that 
another  had  been  driven  to  in- 
sanity by  cruel  treatment  when  a 
prisoner From  that  mo- 
ment he  devoted  his  life,  all  that  he 
was,  and  all  that  he  had,  to  one 
single  purpose — ^the  extirpation  of 
slavery. 

.4  Popular  History  of  the  United  States,  William 
Cvillen  Bryant  and  Sydney  Howard  Gay,  Vol.  IV, 
page  429. 


JOHN  BROWN  OF  OSAWATOMIE 


"  The  Power  of  Hope  " 

"Free  labor  has  the  inspiration  of  hope;  pure  slavery  has  no 
hope.  The  power  of  hope  upon  human  exertion  and  happiness  is 
wonderful.  The  slave-master  himself  has  a  conception  of  it,  and 
hence  the  system  of  tasks  among  slaves.  The  slave  whom  you  can- 
not drive  with  the  lash  to  break  seventy-five  pounds  of  hemp  in  a 
day,  if  you  will  task  him  to  break  a  hundred,  and  promise  him  pay 
for  all  he  does  over,  he  will  break  you  a  hundred  and  fifty.  You 
have  substituted  hope  for  the  rod.  And  yet  perhaps  it  does  not 
occur  to  you  that  to  the  extent  of  your  gain  in  the  case,  you  have 
given  up  the  slave  system  and  adopted  the  free  system  of  labor, ' ' 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham  ^.incoln.  Notes  on  Government,  July  i,  1854,  page  216. 


240  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

'*  A  Question  of  Interest " 

"If  A  can  prove,  however  conclusively,  that  he  may  of  right 
enslave  B,  why  may  not  B  snatch  the  same  argument  and  prove 
equally  that  he  may  enslave  A?  You  say  A  is  white  and  B  is  black. 
It  is  color,  then;  the  lighter  having  the  right  to  enslave  the  darker? 
Take  care.  By  this  rule  you  are  to  be  slave  to  the  first  man  you 
meet  with  a  fairer  skin  than  your  own.  You  do  not  mean  color 
exactly?  You  mean  the  whites  are  intellectually  the  superiors  of 
the  blacks,  and  therefore  have  the  right  to  enslave  them?  Take 
care  again.  By  this  rule  you  are  to  be  slave  to  the  first  man  you 
meet  with  an  intellect  superior  to  your  own.  But,  say  you,  it  is  a 
question  of  interest,  and  if  you  make  it  your  interest  you  have  the 
right  to  enslave  another.  Very  well.  And  if  he  can  make  it  his 
interest  he  has  the  right  to  enslave  you." 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  Notes  on  Government,  July  i,  1854,  page  217. 

"  The  Most  Stupid  Slave  Knows  " 

"The  ant  which  has  toiled  and  dragged  a  crumb  to  his  nest  will 
furiously  defend  the  fruit  of  his  labor  against  whatever  robber  assails 
him.  So  plain  that  the  most  dumb  and  stupid  slave  that  ever  toiled 
for  a  master  does  constantly  know  that  he  is  wronged.  So  plain 
that  no  one,  high  or  low,  ever  does  mistake  it,  except  in  a  plainly 
selfish  way ;  for  although  volume  upon  volume  is  written  to  prove 
slavery  a  very  good  thing,  we  never  hear  of  the  man  who  wishes  to 
take  the  good  of  it  by  being  a  slave  himself. 

"Most  governments  have  been  based,  practically,  on  the  denial 
of  the  equal  rights  of  men,  as  I  have,  in  part,  stated  them;  ours 
began  by  affirming  those  rights.  They  said,  some  men  are  too 
ignorant  and  vicious  to  share  in  government.  Possibly  so,  said  we; 
and,  by  your  system,  you  would  always  keep  them  ignorant  and 
vicious. 

"We  proposed  to  give  all  a  chance,  and  we  expected  the  weak 
to  grow  stronger,  the  ignorant  wiser,  and  all  better  and  happier 
together. 

' '  We  made  the  experiment,  and  the  fruit  is  before  us.  Look  at 
it;  think  of  it!  Look  at  it  in  its  aggregate  grandeur  of  extent,  of 
country,  and  numbers  of  population — of  ship  and  steamboat  and 
railroad." 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  Notes  on  Government,  July  i,  1854,  page  217. 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN  241 

The  Peoria  Speech  Defining  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  Its  Repeal,  the 
Wilmot  Proviso  and  the  Compromise  of  1850 

"In  order  to  a  clear  understanding  of  what  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise is,  a  short  history  of  the  preceding  kindred  subjects  will, 
perhaps,  be  proper. 

"When  we  established  our  independence,  we  did  not  own  or 
claim  the  country  to  which  this  compromise  applies.  Indeed, 
strictly  speaking,  the  Confederation  of  States  then  owned  no 
country  at  all;  the  States  respectively  owned  the  country  within 
their  limits,  and  some  of  them  owned  territory  beyond  their  strict 
State  limits.  Virginia  thus  owned  the  Northwestern  Territory — ^the 
country  out  of  which  the  principal  part  of  Ohio,  all  Indiana,  all 
Illinois,  all  Michigan,  and  all  Wisconsin  have  since  been  formed. 
She  also  owned  (perhaps  within  her  then  limits)  what  has  since  been 
formed  into  the  State  of  Kentucky 

"We  were  then  living  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
which  were  superseded  by  the  Constitution  several  years  after- 
ward. The  question  of  ceding  the  territories  to  the  General  Govern- 
ment was  set  on  foot.  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  author  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  otherwise  a  chief  actor  in  the  Revolution,  .  . 
who  was,  is,  and  perhaps  will  continue  to  be,  the  most  distinguished 
politician  of  our  history;  a  Virginian  by  birth  and  continued  resi- 
dence, and  withal  a  slaveholder, — conceived  the  idea  of  taking  that 
occasion  to   prevent   slavery   ever  going  into  the   Northwestern 

Territory The  first  ordinance  (which  the  acts  of  Congress 

were  then  called)  for  the  government  of  the  Territory  provided  that 

slavery  should  never  be  permitted  therein The  Union     .    . 

is  now  what  Jefferson  foresaw  and  intended — ^the  happy  home  of 
teeming  millions  of  free,  white,  prosperous  people,  and  no  slave 
among  them 

"But  now  new  light  breaks  upon  us.  Now  Congress  declares 
this  ought  never  to  have  been,  and  the  like  of  it  must  never  be 
again.  The  sacred  right  of  self-government  is  grossly  violated  by  it. 
We  even  find  some  men  who  drew  their  first  breath — and  every 
other  breath  of  their  lives — under  this  very  restriction,  now  live  in 
dread  of  absolute  suffocation  if  they  should  be  restricted  in  the 
"  sacred  right"  of  taking  slaves  to  Nebraska.  That  perfect  liberty 
they  sigh  for — the  liberty  of  making  slaves  of  other  people-^ 
16 


242 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Jefferson  never  thought  of,  their  own  fathers  never  thought  of,  they 
never  thought  of,  themselves,  a  year  ago.  How  fortunate  for  them 
they  did  not  sooner  become  sensible  of  their  great  misery!  Oh, 
how  difficult  it  is  to  treat  with  respect  such  assaults  upon  all  we 
have  ever  really  held  sacred ! 

"But  to  return  to  history.     In  1803  we  purchased  what  was 

then  called  Louisiana,  of 
France.  It  included  the 
present  States  of  Louisi- 
ana, Arkansas,  Missouri 
and  Iowa;  also  the  Terri- 
tory of  Minnesota,  and  the 
present  bone  of  conten- 
tion, Kansas  and  Ne- 
braska. Slavery  already 
existed  among  the 
French  at  New  Orleans, 
and  to  some  extent  in  St. 
Louis.  In  1 81 2  Louisiana 
came  into  the  Union  as  a 
slave  State  without  con- 
troversy. In  1 81 8  or  '19, 
Missouri  showed  signs  of 
a  wish  to  come  in  with 
slavery.  This  was  resisted 
by  the  Northern  members 
of  Congress ;  and  thus  be- 
gan the  first  great  slavery 
agitation  in  the  nation. 
This  controversy  lasted 
several  months,  and  be- 
came very  angry  and  ex- 
citing— the  House  of 
Representatives  voting  steadily  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in 
]\Iissouri,  and  the  Senate  voting  as  steadily  against  it.  Threats  of 
breaking  up  the  Union  were  freely  made,  and  the  ablest  public  men 
of  the  day  became  seriously  alarmed. 

"At  length  a  compromise  was  made,  in  which,  as  in  all  com- 
prornises,  both  sides  yielded  something.     It  was  a  law,  passed  on 


FRANKLIN  PIERCE 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN  243 

the  6th  of  March,  1820,  providing  that  Missouri  might  come  into 
the  Union  with  slavery,  but  that  in  all  the  remaining  part  of  the 
territory  purchased  of  France,  which  lies  north  of  thirty-six  degrees 
and  thirty  minutes  north  latitude,  slavery  should  not  be  permitted. 
This  provision  of  law  is  the  '  Missouri  Compromise. '    .    .     .     . 

.  .  .  . "  Thus  originated  the  Missouri  Compromise ;  and  thus 
it  has  been  respected  down  to  1845,  and  even  four  years  later.    .    .    . 

' '  But  going  bacK  a  little  in  point  of  time.  Our  war  with  Mexico 
broke  out  in  1846.  When  Congress  was  about  adjourning  that 
session,  President  Polk  asked  them  to  place  two  millions  of  dollars 
under  his  control,  to  be  used  by  him  in  the  recess,  if  found  prac- 
ticable and  expedient,  in  negotiating  a  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico, 
and  acquiring  some  part  of  her  territory.  A  bill  was  duly  gotten  up 
for  the  purpose,  and  was  progressing  swimmingly  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  when  a  member  by  the  name  of  David  Wilmot,  a 
Democrat  from  Pennsylvania,  moved  as  an  amendment, 

'"Provided,  that  in  any  territory  thus  acquired  there  shall 
never  be  slavery. ' 

"This  is  the  origin  of  the  far-famed  'Wilmot  Proviso.'  It 
created  a  great  flutter ;  but  it  stuck  like  wax,  was  voted  into  the  bill 
and  the  bill  passed  with  it  through  the  House.  The  Senate,  how- 
ever, adjourned  without  final  action  on  it,  and  so  both  appropriation 
and  proviso  were  lost  for  the  time 

"In  the  fall  of  1848  the  gold-mines  were  discovered  in  California. 
This  attracted  people  to  it  with  unprecedented  rapidity,  so  that  on, 
or  soon  after,  the  meeting  of  the  new  Congress  in  December,  1849, 
she  already  had  a  population  of  nearly  a  hundred  thousand,'  had 
called  a  convention,  fonned  a  State  Constitution  excluding  slavery, 
and  was  knocking  for  admission  into  the  Union.  The  Proviso  men, 
of  course,  were  for  letting  her  in,  but  the  Senate,  always  true  to  the 
other  side,  would  not  consent  to  her  admission,  so  there  California 
stood,  kept  out  of  the  Union  because  she  would  not  let  slavery  into 
her  borders 

The  Union  now,  as  in  1820,  was  thought  to  be  in  danger.  .  .  . 
A  compromise  was  finally  effected.  The  South  got  their  fugitive- 
slave  law,  and  the  North  got  California  .  .  ,  as  a  free  State.  The 
South  got  a  provision  that  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  when  admitted 
as  States,  may  come  in  with  or  without  slavery  as  they  may  then 


244  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

choose ;  and  the  North  got  the  slave-trade  aboHshed  in  the  District 
of  Columbia 

"This  is  the  'Compromise  of  1850.' 

"  During  this  long  period  of  time,  Nebraska  had  remained  sub- 
stantially  an  uninhabited  country,   but  now   emigration  to   and 

settlement  within  it  began  to  take  place The  restriction  of 

slavery  by  the  Missouri  Compromise  directly  applies  to  it — in  fact 
was  first  made,  and  has  since  been  maintained  expressly  for  it.  .  . 
On  January  21,  1854,  Judge  Douglas  introduces  a  new  bill  to  give 
Nebraska  territorial  government.  He  accompanies  this  bill  wdth  a 
report,  in  which  last  he  expressly  recommends  that  the  Missouri 
Compromise  shall  neither  be  affirmed  nor  repealed.  Before  long 
the  bill  is  so  modified  as  to  make  two  territories  instead  of  one, 
calling  the  southern  one  Kansas. 

"Also,  about  a  month  after  the  introduction  of  the  bill  on  the 
Judge's  own  motion,  it  is  so  amended  as  to  declare  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise  inoperative  and  void ;  and  substantially,  that  the  people 
who  go  and  settle  there,  may  establish  slavery,  or  exclude  it,  as  they 
may  see  fit.  In  this  shape  the  bill  passed  both  branches  of  Congress 
and  became  a  law. 

"This  is  the  'Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise. ' " 

Early  Speeches  by  Abraham-  Lincoln.  The  Missouri  Compromise,  the  Iniquity  of  its  Repeal,  and  the 
Propriety  of  its  Restoration.  From  the  Speech  at  Peoria,  Illinois,  in  Reply  to  Senatoj 
Douglas,  October  16,  1854,  page  220. 

"The  State  versus  Mr.  Whiskey" 

In  1855  Lincoln  was  attending  court  at  the  town  of  Clinton, 
Illinois.  Fifteen  ladies  from  a  neighboring  village  in  the  count;v 
had  been  indicted  for  trespass.  Their  offense  consisted  in  sweep- 
ing down  on  one  Tanner,  the  keeper  of  a  saloon  in  the  village,  an-J 
knocking  in  the  heads  of  his  barrels.  Lincoln  was  not  employed 
in  the  case,  but  sat  watching  the  trial  as  it  proceeded.  In  defending 
the  ladies,  their  attorney  seemed  to  evince  a  little  want  of  tact,  and 
this  prompted  one  of  the  former  to  invite  Mr.  Lincoln  to  add  a  few 
words  to  the  jury,  if  he  thought  he  could  aid  their  case.  He  was 
too  gallant  to  refuse  and,  their  attorney  having  consented,  he  made 
use  of  the  following  argument : 

"  In  this  case  I  would  change  the  order  of  indictment  and  have 
it  read : 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN 


245 


'"The  State  vs.  Mr.  Whiskey,'  instead  of  'The  State  vs.  The 
Ladies. ' 

"And  touching  these  there  are  three  laws:  'The  law  of  self- 
protection;  the  law  of  the  land,  or  statute  law;  and  the  moral 
law,  or  law  of  God. ' 

"First,   the  law  of  self-protection  is  a  law  of  necessity,   as 
evinced  by  our  forefathers  in  casting  the  tea 
overboard  and  asserting  their  right  to  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. 

"In  this  case  it  is  the  only  defense  the 
ladies  have,  for  Tanner  neither  feared  God 
nor  regarded  man.  Second,  the  law  of  the 
land,  or  statute  law,  and  Tanner  is  recreant 
to  both.  Third  the  moral  law,  or  law  of 
God,  and  this  is  probably  a  law  for  the 
violation  of  which  the  jury  can  fix  no 
punishment. " 

Lincoln  quoted  some  of  his  own  obser- 
vations on  the  ruinous  effects  of  whiskey  in 

society,  and  demanded  its  early  suppression.  After  he  had  con- 
cluded, the  Court,  without  awaiting  the  return  of  the  jury,  dis- 
missed the  ladies,  saying:  "Ladies,  go  home,  I  will  require  no 
bond  of  you,  and  if  any  fine  is  ever  wanted  of  you,  we  will  let  you 
know. " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  12. 


"  These  Boys  Would  Never  Have  Tried  to  Cheat  Old  Farmer  Case  " 

The  suit  of  Case  vs.  Snow,  tried  at  the  spring  term  of  the -Taze- 
well Circuit  Court,  illustrates  both  Mr.  Lincoln's  love  of  justice  and 
his  adroitness  in  managing  an  ordinary  case.  He  had  brought  an 
action  in  behalf  of  an  old  man  named  Case  against  the  Snow  boys 
to  recover  the  amount  of  a  note  given  them  in  payment  for  what 
was  known  as  a  "  prairie  team. "  This  consists  of  a  breaking  plow 
and  two  or  three  yoke  of  oxen,  making  up  a  team  strong  enough  to 
break  up  the  strong,  tough,  thick  turf  of  the  prairie. 

The  defendants,  the  Snow  boys,  appeared  by  their  counsel  and 
pleaded  that  they  were  infants,  or  minors,  when  the  note  was  given. 
On  the  trial  Lincoln  produced  the  note,  and  it  was  admitted  that  it 


246 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


was  given  for  the  oxen  and  plow.  The  defendants  then  offered  to 
prove  that  they  were  under  twenty-one  years  of  age  when  they 
signed  the  note. 

"  Yes,  "  said  Lincoln,  "  I  guess  that  is  true  and  we  will  admit  it.  " 
"  Is  there  a  count  in  the  declaration  for  oxen  and  plow,  sold  and 
delivered? "  inquired  Judge  Treat,  the  presiding  judge. 

"Yes, "  said  Lincoln,  "  and  I  have  only  two  or  three  questions 
to  ask  of  the  witness. "  The  witness  had  been  called  to  prove  the 
age  of  the  Snow  boys. 

"  Where  is  that  prairie  team  now? "  said  Lincoln. 
"  On  the  farm  of  the  Snow  boys.  " 

"  Have  you  seen  any  one  breaking 
prairie  with  it  lately? " 

"Yes,"  replied  the  witness,  "the 
Snow  boys  were  breaking  up  with  it  last 
week. " 

"  How  old  are  the  boys  now? " 
"One  is  a  little  over  twenty-one,  and 
the  other  near  twenty-three. " 

"That  is  all,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 
"Gentlemen,"  said  Lincoln  to  the 
jury,  "these  boys  would  never  have  tried 
to  cheat  old  Farmer  Case  out  of  these  oxen 
and  that  plow,  but  for  the  ad\'ice  of 
It  was  bad  advice,  bad  in  morals  and  bad  in  law.  The 
law  never  sanctions  cheating,  and  a  lawyer  must  be  very  smart 
indeed  to  twist  it  so  that  it  will  seem  to  do  so.  The  judge  will  tell 
you  what  your  own  sense  of  justice  has  already  told  you,  that 
these  Snow  boys,  if  they  were  mean  enough  to  plead  the  baby  act, 
when  they  came  to  be  men  should  have  taken  the  oxen  and  plow 
back.  They  can  not  go  back  on  their  contract  and  also  keep  what 
the  note  was  given  for.  " 

The  jury,  without  leaving  their  seats,  gave  a  verdict  for  old 
Farmer  Case. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  85. 

Railroad,  Repudiating  Bill  for  $2,000,  Pays  $5,000 

Probably  the  most  important  lawsuit  Lincoln  and  I  conducted 
was  one  in  which  we  defended  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  in  an 


counsel. 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN  247 

action  brought  by  McLean  County,  Illinois,  in  August,  1853,  to 
recover  taxes  alleged  to  be  due  the  county  from  the  road.  The 
Legislature  had  granted  the  road  immunity  from  taxation,  and  this 
was  a  case  intended  to  test  the  constitutionality  of  the  law.  The 
road  sent  a  retainer  of  $250. 

In  the  lower  court  the  case  was  decided  in  favor  of  the  railroad. 
An  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  followed,  and  there  it  was  argued 
twice,  and  finally  decided  in  our  favor.  This  last  decision  was 
rendered  some  time  in  1855.  Mr.  Lincoln  soon  went  to  Chicago 
and  presented  our  bill  for  legal  services.  We  only  asked  for  $2,000 
more. 

The  official  to  whom  he  was  referred  looking  at  the  bill, 
expressed  great  surprise. 

"  Why,  sir,  "  he  exclaimed,  "  this  is  as  much  as  Daniel  Webster 
himself  would  have  charged!     We  cannot  allow  such  a  claim.  " 

Stung  by  the  rebuff,  Lincoln  withdrew  the  bill,  and  started  for 
home.  On  the  way  he  stopped  at  Bloomington.  There  he  met 
Grant  Goodrich,  Archibald  Williams,  Norman  B.  Judd,  O.  H. 
Browning,  and  other  attorneys,  who,  on  learning  of  his  modest 
charge  for  such  valuable  services  rendered  the  railroad,  induced  him 
to  increase  the  demand  to  $5 ,000,  and  to  bring  suit  for  that  sum. 
This  was  done  at  once. 

On  the  trial  six  lawyers  certified  that  the  bill  was  reasonable, 
and  judgment  for  that  sum  went  by  default.  The  judgment  was 
promptly  paid.     Lincoln  gave  me  my  half. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  20. 

[Note. — It  is  often  stated  that  George  B.  McClellan  was  the 
railroad  official  who  insulted  Lincoln  by  telling  him  that  his  bill 
was  "as  much  as  a  first-class  attorney  would  have  charged."  But 
McClellan,  who  was  afterwards  Vice-President  of  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral Railroad,  was  in  Europe  at  this  time. — W,  W.] 

Herndon's  Half 

"  There  was  no  order  in  the  office  at  all.  The  firm  of  Lincoln  & 
Herndon  kept  no  books.  .  .  .  One  day  Mr.  Lincoln  received 
$5,000  as  a  fee  in  a  railroad  case.     He  came  in  and  said : 

"  'Well,  Billy,'  addressing  his  partner,  Mr.  Herndon.  'Here 
is  our  fee;  sit  down  and  let  me  divide.'     He  counted  out  $2,500 


248 


THE  STORY -LTFE  OF  LJNCOLN 


to  his  partner,  and  gave  it  to  him  with  as  much  nonchalance  as  he 
would  have  given  a  few  cents  for  a  paper.  Cupidity  had  no  abiding 
place  in  his  nature.  " 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  I,  page  318. 


First  Meeting  of  Lincoln  and  Stanton 

The  two  had  met  several  years  before,  [1855]  under  conditions 
that  left  no  favorable  impression  in  the  recollection  of  either.  As 
associate  counsel  with  George  Harding,  in  the  famous  case  of  Mc- 
Cormick  vs.  Manny,  they  had  appeared  for  the  defendant  before 
Judges  McLean  and  Drummond,  in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court, 
at  Cincinnati.     When  the  trial  began,  it  was  found  that  the  plaintiff 

had  but  two  advocates The   attorney  for  the  defense 

was   obliged  to  withdraw   a  representative — but  which  one  was 

it  to  be?  Mr.  Harding,  then  in  the 
zenith  of  his  fame  as  a  patent  lawyer, 
had  been  retained  especially  to  make 
the  technical  argument.  Choice  for 
the  forensic  address,  therefore,  lay  be- 
tween Lincoln  and  Stanton.  The  lat- 
ter was  selected,  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  keen 

disappointment Lincoln's 

chagrin,  moreover,  was  greatly  in- 
tensified by  Stanton's  behavior.  It 
was  not  true,  as  has  been  generally 
reported,  that  the  man  from  Spring- 
field was  elbowed  out  of  the  case  by 
his  Eastern  colleague;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  what  at  best  was  a  mortifying  experience  for 
Lincoln  became  doubly  so  by  reason  of  the  other's  rudeness.  Our 
prairie  lawyer,  though  he  ranked  high  at  home,  made  a  poor 
impression  upon  Stanton,  who  described  him,  in  his  acrid  way, 
as  a  "long,  lank  creature  from  Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty  linen  duster 
for  a  coat,  on  the  back  of  which  the  perspiration  had  splotched 
wide  stains  that  resembled  a  map  of  the  continent."  What  was 
worse,  Mr.  Stanton  made  no  secret  of  his  disdain.  The  object  of 
it  heard  him  inquiring,  "  Where  did  that  long-armed  creature  come 
from,  and  what  can  he  expect  to  do  in  this  case?" 


\ 


From  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay. 

EDWIN  M.  STANTON,  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

From  a  bitter  and  abusive  enemy  Stanton  became  a  loyal  and   devoted  admirer  of  President  Lincoln. 

The  story  of  this  transformation  is  of  rare  interest. 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN  249 

So  gross,  indeed,  were  the  discourtesies  to  which  Lincoln  was 
subjected  from  this  quarter,  that  his  magnanimous  soul  for  some 
time  harbored  bitter  feeling. 

"  I  have  never  been  so  brutally  treated  as  by  that  man  Stan- 
ton, "  was  his  comment  on  the  affair. 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  224. 

Why  Lincoln  Was  a  "Dangerous  Man" 

During  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1856  I  lived  in  Northern 
Illinois.  As  one  who  dabbled  a  little  in  politics  and  a  good  deal  in 
journalism,  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  follow  up  some  of  the  more 
important  mass  meetings  of  the  Republicans.  At  one  of  these 
great  assemblies  in  Ogle  County,  to  w^hich  the  country  people  came 
on  horseback,  in  farm-wagons,  or  afoot,  from  far  and  near,  there 
were  several  speakers  of  local  celebrity.  Dr.  Egan  of  Chicago, 
famous  for  his  racy  stories,  was  one,  and  "Joe"  Knox  of  Bureau 
County,  a  stump  speaker  of  renown,  was  another  attraction. 
Several  other  orators  were  "on  the  bills"  for  this  long-advertised 
"Fremont  and  Dayton  rally,"  among  them  being  a  Springfield 
lawyer  who  had  won  some  reputation  as  a  shrewd,  close  reasoner 
and  a  capital  speaker  on  the  stump.  This  was  Abraham  Lincoln, 
popularly  known  as  "  Honest  Abe  Lincoln.  "  In  those  days  he  was 
not  so  famous  in  our  part  of  the  State  as  the  two  speakers  whom  I 
have  named.  Possibly  he  was  not  so  popular  among  the  masses 
of  the  people ;  but  his  ready  wit,  his  unfailing  good-humor,  and  the 
candor  which  gave  him  his  character  for  honesty,  won  for  him  the 
admiration  and  respect  of  all  who  heard  him.  I  remember  once 
meeting  a  choleric  old  Democrat  striding  away  from  an  open-air 
meeting  where  Lincoln  was  speaking,  striking  the  earth  with  his 
cane  as  he  stumped  along  and  exclaiming, 

"He's  a  dangerous  man,  sir!  a  deuced  dangerous  man!  He 
makes  you  believe  what  he  says  in  spite  of  yourself!" 

It  was  Lincoln's  manner.  He  admitted  away  his  whole  case 
apparently,  and  yet,  as  his  political  opponents  complained,  he 
usually  carried  conviction  with  him.  As  he  reasoned  with  his 
audience,  he  bent  his  long  form  over  the  railing  of  the  platform, 
stooping  lower  and  lower,  as  he  pursued  his  argument,  until,  hav- 
ing reached  his  point,  he  clinched  it  (usually  with  a  question), 


2  so  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

and  then  suddenly  sprang  upright,  reminding  one  of  the  springing 
open  of  a  jack-knife  blade. 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks.     Scrihner's  Monthly,  Vol.  XV,  February,  1878, 
page  561- 

Lincoln's  "Lost  Speech"  Sealing  the  New  Party  at  the 
Bloomington  Convention 

In  the  interval  between  the  Decatur  meeting  and  the  Bloom- 
ington Convention  called  for  May  29  [1856],  the  excitement  in  the 
country  over  Kansas  grew  almost  to  a  frenzy.  The  new  State  was 
in  the  hands  of  a  pro-slavery  mob,  her  Governor  a  prisoner,  her 

capital  in  ruins,  her  voters  intimidated The  Convention 

was  opened  by  John  M.  Palmer,  afterwards  United  States  Senator, 
in  its  chair,  and  in  a  very  short  time  it  had  adopted  a  platform, 
appointed  delegates  to  the  National  Convention,  nominated  a  State 
ticket,  completed,  in  short,  all  the  work  of  organizing  the  Republican 
party  in  Illinois.  After  this  work  of  organizing  and  nominating  was 
finished,  there  w^as  a  call  for  speeches.  The  Convention  felt  the 
need  of  some  powerful  amalgamating  force  which  would  weld  its 

discordant  elements Man  after  man  was  called  to  the 

platform  without  producing  any  marked  effect,  when  suddenly  there 
was  a  call  raised  of  a  name  not  on  the  program — "Lincoln" — 
"Lincoln" — "give  us  Lincoln!"  The  crowd  took  it  up  and  made 
the  hall  ring  until  a  tall  figure  rose  in  the  back  of  the  audience  and 
slowly  strode  dow^n  the  aisle.  As  he  turned  to  his  audience  there 
came  gradually  a  great  change  upon  his  face.  "There  was  an 
expression  of  intense  emotion, "  Judge  Scott,  of  Bloomington  once 
told  the  author  (Miss  Tarbell).  "  It  was  the  emotion  of  a  great  soul. 
Even  in  stature  he  seemed  greater.  He  seemed  to  realize  it  was  a 
crisis  in  his  life.  " 

He  began  his  speech,  then,  deeply  moved,  and  with  a  profound 

sense  of  the  importance  of  the  moment Starting  from 

the  back  of  the  broad  platform  on  which  he  stood,  his  hands  on 
his  hips,  he  slowly  advanced  towards  the  front,  his  eyes  blazing, 
his  face  white  with  passion,  his  voice  resonant  with  the  force  of  his 
conviction.  As  he  advanced  he  seemed  to  his  audience  fairly  to 
grow,  and  when  at  the  end  of  the  period  he  stood  at  the  front  line  of 
the  stage,  hands  still  on  the  hips,  head  back,  raised  on  his  tip  toes, 
he  seemed  like  a  giant  inspired, 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN 


251 


"At  that  moment  he  was  the  handsomest  man  I  ever  saw," 
Judge  Scott  declared. 

So  powerful  was  his  effect  on  his  audience  that  men  and  women 

wept  as  they  cheered As  he  went  on  there  came  upon  the 

Convention  the  very  emotion  he  sought  to  arouse. 

"  Everyone  in  that  before  incongruous  assembly  came  to  feel 
as  one  man,  "  says  one  of  the  auditors.  He  had  made  every  man! 
of  them  pure  Republican.  He  did  something  more.  The  indigna- 
tion which  the  outrages  in  Kan- 
sas and  throughout  the  country 
had  aroused  was  uncontrolled. 
Men  talked  passionately  of  war. 
It  was  at  this  meeting  that  Lin- 
coln, after  firing  his  hearers  by 
an  expression  which  became  a 
watchword  of  the  campaign, 
"  We  won't  go  out  of  the  Union 
and  you  shan't,  "  poured  oil  on 
the  wrath  of  the  opponents  of 
the  Nebraska  bill  by  advising 
"ballots,  not  bullets!" 

Nothing  illustrates  better 
the  extraordinary  power  of  Lin- 
coln's speech  at  Bloomington 
than  the  way  he  stirred  up  the 
newspaper  reporters.  ...  Of 
course,  all  leading  newspapers 
of  the  State  leaning  towards  the 
new  party  had  reporters  at  the 
Convention.     Among  these  was  Mr.  Joseph  Medill. 

"I  well  remember,"  says  Mr.  Medill,  "that  after  Lincoln  sat 
down  and  calm  had  succeeded  the  tempest,  I  waked  out  of  a  sort  of 
hypnotic  trance  and  then  thought  of  my  report  for  the  (Chicago) 
Tribune.  There  was  nothing  written  but  an  abbreviated  intro- 
duction. 

"  It  was  some  sort  of  satisfaction  to  find  that  I  had  not  been 
'scooped,'  as  all  the  newspaper  men  present  had  been  equally  carried 
away  by  the  excitement  caused  by  the  wonderful  oration,  and  had 
made  no  report  or  sketch  of  the  speech.  " 


LINCOLN  IN  '56 


252  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

....  The  result  of  this  excitement  was  when  the  Conven- 
tion was  over  there  was  no  reporter  present  who  had  anything  for 
his  newspaper.  They  all  went  home  and  wrote  burning  editorials 
about  the  speech  and  its  great  principle,  but  as  to  reproducing  it 

they  could  not.     Men  came  to  talk  of  it  all  over  Illinois 

Gradually  it  became  known  as  Lincoln's  "  Lost  Speech." 

The  Life  of  AbraJiL-m  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  292. 

The  Speech  as  Afterward  Reproduced 

[But  Henry  C.  Whitney,  a  young  attorney  associated  with 
Lincoln  both  before  and  after  this  strange  event,  was  able  to  make 
notes  during  the  delivery  of  this  wonderful  oration,  which  he 
amplified  afterw^ard  from  conversations  wnth  other  auditors  and 
with  Lincoln  himself,  and  has  published  the  result  in  Lincoln's  Early 
Speeches,  and  from  the  "Lost  Speech"  the  following  is  the  closing 
climax  as  reproduced  by  Mr.  Whitney :] 

"Did  you  ever,  my  friends,  seriously  reflect  upon  the  speed 
with  w^hich  we  are  tending  downwards?  Within  the  memory  of 
men  now  present,  the  leading  statesmen  of  Virginia  could  make 
genuine  red-hot  abolitionist  speeches  in  old  Virginia!  and,  as  I  have 
said,  now  even  in  '  free  Kansas '  it  is  a  crime  to  declare  that  it  is 
'  free  Kansas. '  The  very  sentiments  that  I  and  others  have  just 
uttered,  would  entitle  us,  and  each  of  us,  to  the  ignominy  and 
seclusion  of  a  dungeon ;  and  yet  I  suppose  that,  like  Paul,  we  were 
'  free  born. '  But  if  this  thing  is  allowed  to  continue,  it  will  be  but 
one  step  further  to  impress  the  same  rule  in  Illinois.      [Sensation.] 

"The  conclusion  of  all  is,  that  we  must  restore  the  Missouri 
Compromise.  We  must  highly  resolve  that  Kansas  shall  he  free! 
[Great  applause.']  We  must  reinstate  the  birthday  promise  of  the 
Republic;  we  must  reaffinn  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  we 
must  make  good  in  essence  as  well  as  in  form  Madison's  avowal  that 
'  the  word  slave  ought  not  to  appear  in  the  Constitution ; '  and  we 
must  even  go  further,  and  decree  that  only  local  law,  and  not  that 
time-honored  instrument,  shall  shelter  a  slave-holder.  We  must 
make  this  a  land  of  liberty  in  fact,  as  it  is  in  name.  But  in  seeking 
to  attain  these  results — so  indispensable  if  the  liberty  which  is  our 
pride  and  boast  shall  endure — ^we  will  be  loyal  to  the  Constitution 
and  to  the  '  flag  of  our  Union, '  and  no  matter  what  our  grievance — 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN 


253 


even  though  Kansas  shall  come  in  as  a  slave  State — and  no  matter 
what  theirs — even  if  we  shall  restore  the  Compromise — we  will 

SAY    TO    THE    SOUTHERN    DISUNIONISTS,  We    WON't    GO    OUT    OF   THE 

Union,  and  you  SHAN'T!  !  !  [This  was  the  climax;  the  audience 
rose  to  its  feet  en  masse,  applauded,  stamped,  waved  handkerchiefs, 
threw  hats  in  the  air,  and  ran  riot  for  several  minutes.  The  arch- 
enchanter  who  wrought  this  transformation  looked,  meanwhile,  like 
the  personification  of  political  justice.] 

Life  and  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Early  Speeches,  page  301. 

"  That  Speech  Puts  Lincoln  on  the  Track  for  the  Presidency  " 

It  is  now  generally  agreed  that  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  most 
eloquent  and  impressive  utterances  was  the  speech  he  delivered  at 
the  first  Republican  State  Convention  in  Illinois,  held  at  Bloom- 
ington.  May  29,  1856 

"  Never  was  an  audience  more  completely  electrified  by  human 
eloquence, "  wrote  John  L.  Scripps  to  his  paper  (the  Chicago 
Tribune).  "Again  and  again  during  its  de- 
livery they  sprang  to  their  feet  and  upon 
the  benches  and  testified,  by  long-continued 
shouts  and  the  waving  of  hats,  how  deeply 
the  speaker  had  wrought  upon  their  minds 
and  hearts.  It  fused  the  mass  of  incongru- 
ous elements  into  perfect  homogeneity ;  and 
from  that  day  to  the  present  they  have 
worked  together  in  harmonious  and  fra- 
ternal union." 

During  the  Convention  Mr,  Lincoln  was 
the  guest  of  Judge  David  Davis.  A  few 
minutes  after  the  delivery  of  his  speech  the  • 

Convention  adjourned,  whereupon  Mr.  Lincoln  left  the  hall  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  (Henry  C.)  Whitney,  who  likewise  was  sojourning  at 
the  Davis  home. 

"As  I  passed  down  stairs  with  the  crowd,"  relates  Whitney, 
"  Jesse  K.  Dubois,  who  had  been  nominated  State  Auditor,  seized  me 
by  the  arm  with  a  painful  grip  and  made  an  exclamation  close  to 
my  ear.  Presently  Lincoln  got  disentangled  from  the  applauding 
crowd,  and  he  and  I  started  off  in  the  direction  of  Judge  Davis's 


254 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


house.  As  soon  as  we  were  out  of  hearing,  Lincoln  at  once  com- 
menced a  hne  of  remark  upon  the  extraordinary  scene  we  had  just 
witnessed,  and  whose  prime  mover  he  was,  at  the  same  time  bending 
his  head  down  to  make  our  conversation  more  confidential.  In  a 
glow  of  enthusiasm  I  said  in  reply  to  a  question  by  him : 

"  'You  know  my  statements  about  your  speeches  are  not  good 
authority,  so  I  will  tell  you  what  Dubois,  who  is  not  so  enthusiastic 
as  I  am,  said  to  me  as  we  came  out  of  the  hall : 

"  '  "Whitney,  "  said  he,  "that  is  the  greatest  speech  ever  made 
in  Illinois,  and  puts  Lincoln  on  the  track  for  the  Presidency."  '  " 

Lincoln's  Vote  for  Vice-President,  Jesse  W,  Weik.   The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  LXXVI,  June, 
1908,  page  186. 

Playing  a  Boyish  Prank  When  He  Heard  of  His  Votes  for  Vice-President 

Twenty  days  after  this  incident  (the  "Lost  Speech"  at  the 
Bloomington  Convention)  the  delegates  to  the  first  National  Repub- 
lican Convention  assembled  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia  to  nominate 

candidates  for  President  and  Vice-President 

Although,  as  we  have  seen,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  in  Philadelphia, 

it  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  his 
presence  elsewhere.  The  truth  is  that 
he  was  in  Illinois,  diligently  engaged 
in  following  Judge  Davis  around  the 
circuit.  At  the  very  time  of  the  Con- 
vention he  was  attending  a  special 
term  of  court  in  Urbana. 

Mr.  Whitney  relates  that  Judge 
Davis  and  the  non-resident  lawyers 
were  quartered  at  the  leading  hostelry 
of  the  place.  Their  slumbers  in  the 
early  dawn  having  too  often  been  dis- 
turbed by  the  tones  of  a  vibrant  gong 
summoning  them  to  breakfast,  they  de- 
cided, one  morning,  that  the  offending  instrument  must  be  removed 
or  in  some  way  forever  silenced.  By  a  majority  vote  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  chosen  to  carry  out  this  decree.  Accordingly,  a  little  earlier 
than  usual  before  noon  that  day,  he  was  seen  to  leave  the  court-room 
and  hasten  to  the  hotel.  Slipping  unobserved  into  the  dining-room, 
he  managed  to  secure  the  gong,  secreting  it  under  his  coat,  and  was* 


ENTERS  POLITICS  AGAIN  ±55 

in  the  act  of  making  off  with  it  when  Whitney  and  Judge  Davis 
suddenly  appeared  on  the  scene.  The  former  held  in  his  hand  a 
copy  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  which  had  just  reached  town  and  con- 
tained the  surprising  and  gratifying  announcement  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  received  no  votes  for  Vice-President  at  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
vention the  day  before. 

"  Great  business  this,  "  chuckled  Davis,  "  for  a  man  who  aspires 
to  be  Vice-President  of  the  United  States!" 

Lincoln  only  smiled.  "Davis  and  I,"  declared  Whitney, 
"  were  greatly  excited,  but  Lincoln  was  listless  and  indifferent.  His 
only  response  was : 

"  'Surely  it  ain't  me ;  there's  another  great  man  named  Lincoln 
down  in  Massachusetts.     I  reckon  it's  him.'  " 

Lincoln's  Vote  for  Vice-President,  Jesse  W.  Weik.    The  Century  Magazine  Vol.  LXXVI,  Jun^ 
1908,  page  189. 

"A  Prophet  without  Honor  in  His  Own  City" 

To  reconcile  some  otherwise  irreconcilable  incidents  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  biography,  an  understanding  of  the  political  and  social 
bias  of  his  neighbors  is  necessary.  In  1856,  we  are  advised  by  local 
history  that,  although  Herndon  took  extra  pains  to  get  up  an  enthu- 
siastic reception  to  his  illustrious  partner  upon  a  distinguished 
occasion,  yet  no  one  came  except  one  obscure  man,  and  the  discom- 
fited partners  turned  off  the  gas  and  went  home  very  meek  and 
chopfallen.  Yet  Lincoln  had  been  his  townmen's  Congressman  eight 
years  before,  and  had  been  five  times  elected  by  this  same  people  to 
the  Legislature — the  last  time  only  two  years  before. 

This  inharmony  between  cause  and  eft'ect  had  its  basis  in  social 
and  political  prejudice;  the  early  settlers  of  southern  Illinois  were 
from  the  slave  States,  and  they  were  wedged  in  between  either 
slave-holding  communities,  or  those  having  such  affiliations,  so  that 
the  Yankees  and  Abolitionists  were  as  much  below  par  in  southern 
and  central  Illinois  as  they  were  in  Kentucky  or  Missouri.  This 
prejudice  invaded  the  sanctuary,  and  even  when  the  theme  was 
abounding  grace  and  universal  brotherhood,  it  still  was  not  tem- 
porarily laid  aside.  The  virtue  of  fraternal  love  could  not  be 
assimied,  even  in  the  fervor  of  religious  zeal. 

A  Chadband  of  the  "hardshell"  order  thus  exclaimed  in  a 


256  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

■        ■Mil 

sermon:  "The  overwhelming  torrent  of  free  grace  took  in  the  mount- 
ings of  Aishy,  the  isles  of  the  sea  and  the  uttermost  ends  of  the 
yearth.  It  took  in  the  Eskimos  and  the  Hottingtots,  and  some,  my 
dear  brethering,  go  so  f^lr  as  to  suppose  it  tuk  in  them  air  poor, 
benighted  Yankees;  but  I  don't  go  that  furl" 

Of  course,  when  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passed,  this  feeling 
became  all  the  more  rancorous,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  adher- 
ents of  the  "Anti-Nebraska"  party  came  from  the  ranks  of  the 
hitherto  "pure  and  undefiled"  Democracy,  as  well  as  from  the 
moribund  Whig  party.  The  line  of  cleavage  which  had  separated 
the  Whigs  and  Democrats  now  divided  the  Pro-Sl  avery  Democrats 
from  the  Anti-Extension  of  Slavery  element,  and  the  prejudices 
became  more  intense  and  imyielding  than  before-. 

Lincoln  the  Citizen,  Henry  C.  Whitney,  page  162. 


I 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

LINCOLN  IN  i8s7 

He  sat  for  this  photograph  in  the  gallery  of  Alexander  Hesler,  Chicago.  It  was  from  this 
that  the  first  widely  circulated  cuts  were  made,  and  his  disheveled  hair  occasioned  gen- 
eral comment. 


It 


(257) 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Battles  of  the  Giants 

*  The  First  and  Only  Choice  of  the  Republicans  of  Illinois  for  the 

United  States  Senate" 

Only  the  preceding  year,  1857,  when  Douglas,  in  a  speech  de- 
livered at  Springfield,  Illinois,  had  made  an  attempt  to  wriggle  out 
of  the  dilemma  in  which  the  Dred  Scott  decision  had  entangled 
him,  Lincoln  had,  a  week  later,  before  a  popular  meeting  held  at  the 
same  place,  thrust  the  sword  of  his  logic  through  Douglas's  adroit 
sophistries,  and  incidentally  pronounced  his  famous  vindication  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  which  deserves  well  to  be  remem- 
bered in  the  presence  of  latter-day  problems : 

"The  assertion  that  all  men  are  created  equal'  was  of  no 
practical  use  in  effecting  our  separation  from  Great  Britain,  and 
it  was  placed  in  the  Declaration  not  for  that  but  for  future  use. 
Its  authors  meant  it  to  be  as,  thank  God,  it  is  now  proving 
itself,  a  stumbling-block  to  all  those  who  in  after  times  might 
seek  to  turn  a  free  people  back  into  the  hateful  paths  of  des- 
potism. They  knew  the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed  tyrants, 
and  they  meant  when  such  should  reappear  in  this  fair  land. and 
commence  their  vocation,  they  should  find  left  for  them  at  least 
one  nut  hard  to  crack." 

But  these  discussions  had  hardly  attracted,  beyond  the  bound- 
aries of  Illinois,  the  attention  they  merited.  It  was  only  when  the 
Republican  State  Convention  of  Illinois,  on  the  i6th  of  June,  1858, 
passed,  by  unanimous  acclamation,  a  resolve  declaring  Abraham 
Lincoln  to  be  "the  first  and  only  choice  of  the  Republicans  of 
Illinois  for  the  United  States  Senate,  as  the  successor  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,"  that  the  eyes  of  the  whole  American  people  were 
turned  upon  the  combat  between  the  two  men,  as  an  action  which 
gravely  concerned  them  all. 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  page  86. 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  259 

Locking  Horns  for  "the  Irrepressible  Conflict" 

Illinois  was  this  year  the  arena  of  a  peculiar  contest.  Senator 
Douglas  had  taken  so  prominent  and  so  efficient  a  part  in  the  defeat 
of  the  Lecompton  abomination  that  a  number  of  the  leading 
Republicans  of  other  States  were  desirous  that  their  Illinois  brethren 
should  unite  in  choosing  a  Legislature  pledged  to  return  him,  by  a 
vote  substantially  unanimous,  to  the  seat  he  had  so  ably  filled.  But 
it  was  hardly  in  human  nature  that  those  thus  appealed  to  should, 
because  of  one  good  act,  recognize  and  treat  as  a  friend  one  whom 
they  had  known  for  nearly  twenty  years  as  the  ablest,  most  inde- 
fatigable, and  by  no  means  the  most  scrupulous,  of  their  adver- 
saries. They  held  a  sort  of  State  Convention  therefore  and  pre- 
sented Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  Republican  competitor  for  Mr. 
Douglas's  seat;  and  he  opened  the  canvass  at  once,  in  a  terse, 
forcible  and  thoroughly  "radical"  speech,  wherein  he  enunciated 
the  then  startling,  if  not  absolutely  novel  doctrine  that  the  Union 
cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave  and  half  free.     Said  Mr.  Lincoln : 

,  .  ,  . "  'A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand. '  I 
believe  the  Government  cannot  permanently  endure  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved — I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  that  it  will  cease  to  be 
divided.     It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  "    .    .    .    . 

This  almost  prophetic  statement,  from  one  born  in  Kentucky, 
and  who  had  been  known,  prior  to  the  appearance  of  the  Dred  Scott 
decision,  as  a  rather  conservative  Whig,  was  put  forth,  at  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  June  17,  1858,  more  than  four  months  before  Gover- 
nor Seward,  as  if  under  a  like  premonition  of  coming  events,  said 
(at  Rochester,  New  York,  October  25,  1858) : 

....  "Shall  I  tell  you  what  this  collision  means?  They 
who  think  that  it  is  accidental,  imnecessary,  the  work  of  interested 
or  fanatical  agitators,  and  therefore  ephemeral,  mistake  the  case 
altogether.  It  is  an  irrepressible  conflict  between  opposing  and 
enduring  forces ;  and  it  means  that  the  United  States  must  and  will, 
sooner  or  later,  become  either  entirely  a  slave-holding  nation,  or 
entirely  a  free-labor  nation. "    .    .    .    . 

Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  brief  Springfield  speech,  furnished  the 
shortest  and  sharpest  exposition  ever  yet  given  of  the  doctrine 
vaiinted  as  "Popular  Sovereignty,"  viz; 


26q  the  story -life  of  LINCOLN 

"This  necessity  [for  a  popular  indorsement  of  the  policy  em- 
bodied in  the  Nebraska-Kansas  bill]  had  not  been  overlooked ;  but 
had  been  provided  for,  as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument 
of  'Squatter  Sovereignty, '  otherwise  called  the  'sacred  right  of  self- 
government ; '  which  latter  phrase,  though  expressive  of  the  only 
rightful  basis  of  any  government,  was  so  perverted  in  the  attempted 
use  of  it,  as  to  amount  to  just  this:  That,  if  any  man  choose  to 
enslave  another,  no  third  man  shall  he  allowed  to  object. " 

Mr.  Douglas  promptly  joined  issue;  and  a  moral  canvass  of 
unequalled  interest,  considering  the  smallness  of  the  stake,  was 
prosecuted  by  these  capable  and  practised  debaters,  before  immense 
audiences  of  their  fellow-citizens  up  to  the  eve  of  the  State  election. 

The  American  Conflict,  Horace  Greeley,  Vol.  I,  page  301. 

The  Great  Rock  Island  Bridge  Case 

One  of  the  most  interesting  cases  involving  mechanical  prob- 
lems which  Lincoln  ever  argued  was  that  of  the  Rock  Island  Bridge. 
The  case  was  a  striking  episode  in  the  war  long  waged  by 
the  Mississippi  against  the  plains  beyond.  For  decades  the  river 
had  been  the  willing  burden-bearer  of  the  West.  Now,  however, 
the  railroad  had  come.  The  Rock  Island  road  had  even  dared  to 
bridge  the  stream  to  carry  away  the  traffic  which  the  river  claimed. 

In  May,  1856,  a  steamboat  struck  one  of  the  piers  of  the  bridge, 
and  was  wrecked  and  burned.  One  pier  of  the  bridge  was  also 
destroyed.  The  boat  owners  sued  the  railroad  company.  The 
suit  was  the  beginning  of  the  long  and  violent  struggle  for  commer- 
cial supremacy  between  St.  Louis  and  Chicago.  In  Chicago  it  was 
commonly  believed  that  the  St.  Louis  Chamber  of  Commerce  had 
bribed  the  captain  of  the  boat  to  run  upon  the  pier ;  and  it  was  said 
that  later,  when  the  bridge  itself  was  burned,  the  steamers  gathered 
near  and  whistled  for  joy. 

The  case  was  felt  to  involve  the  future  course  of  Western  com- 
merce, and  when  it  was  called  in  September,  1857,  at  Chicago, 
people  crowded  there  from  all  over  the  West.  Norman  B.  Judd, 
afterwards  so  prominent  in  the  politics  of  the  State,  was  the  attorney 
of  the  road,  and  he  engaged  Lincoln,  among  others,  as  counsel. 
Lincoln  made  an  address  to  the  jury  which  those  who  remember  it 
declare  to  have  been  one  of  his  strongest  legal  arguments.     . 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS 


261 


Lincoln  succeeded  in  showing  that  had  the  pilot  of  the  boat 
been  as  familiar  as  he  ought  to  have  been  with  the  river,  he  could 
easily  have  prevented  the  accident.  His  argument  was  full  of  nice 
mathematical  calculations  clearly  put,  and  was  marked  by  perfect 
candor.  Indeed,  the  honesty  with  which  he  admitted  the  points 
made  by  the  opposite  counsel  caused  con- 
siderable alarm  to  some  of  his  associates. 
Mrs.  Norman  B.  Judd  .  .  says  that 
Mr.  Joseph  B.  Knox,  who  was  also  engaged 
with  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  defense,  dined  at 
her  house  the  day  that  Lincoln  made  his 
speech, 

"  He  sat  down  at  the  table  in  great  ex- 
citement, "  writes  Mrs.  Judd,  "saying,  'Lin- 
coln has  lost  the  case  for  us.  The  admissions 
he  made  in  regard  to  the  currents  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi at  Rock  Island  and  Moline  will  con- 
vince the  court  that  a  bridge  at  that  point 
wiU  always  be  a  serious  and  constant  det- 
riment to  navigation  on  the  river. '  " 

"  'Wait  until  you  hear  the  conclusion  of  his  speech, '  replied 
Mr.  Judd;  'you  will  find  that  his  admission  is  a  strong  point  instead 
of  a  weak  one,  and  on  it  he  will  found  a  strong  argument  that  will 
satisfy  you. '  " 

And,  as  it  proved,  Mr.  Judd  was  right. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  27s. 


NORMAN  B.  JUDD 

Manager  of  the  Lincoln  Presi- 
dential campaign  in  Illinois. 


Lawyer  Lincoln's  Letter  to  Hannah  Armstrong 

"Springfield,  III.,  Sept.,  1857. 
''Dear  Mrs.  Armstrong: 

"I  have  just  heard  of  your  deep  affliction,  and  the  arrest  of 
your  son  for  murder. 

"I  can  hardly  believe  that  he  can  be  capable  of  the  crime 
alleged  against  him. 

"  It  does  not  seem  possible.  I  am  anxious  that  he  should  be 
given  a  fair  trial  at  any  rate;  and  gratitude  for  your  long-con- 
tinued kindness  to  me  in  adverse  circumstances  prompts  me  to  offer 
my  humble  services  gratuitously  in  his  behalf. 


262  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  It  will  afford  me  an  opportunity  to  requite,  in  a  small  degree, 
the  favors  I  received  at  your  hand,  and  that  of  your  lamented 
husband,  when  your  roof  afforded  me  a  grateful  shelter,  without 
money  and  without  price. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Stories  and  Speeches  o^  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  254. 

Saved  by  Lincoln  with  an  Almanac 

The  time  for  the  [Armstrong]  trial  arrived,  and  it  drew  together 
a  crowd  of  interested  people.  .  .  .  The  witnesses  for  the  State  were 
introduced;  some  to  testify  of  Armstrong's  previous  vicious 
character ;  and  others  to  relate  what  they  saw  of  the  affair  on  the 
night  of  the  murder.  His  accuser  testified  in  the  most  positive 
manner,  that  he  saw  him  make  the  dreadful  thrust  that  killed  his 
victim 

"  Couldn't  there  be  some  mistake  about  this? "  asked  [Lincoln] 
the  counsel  for  the  defense. 

"  None  at  all,  "  said  the  witness. 

"  What  time  in  the  evening  was  it?" 

"  Between  nine  and  ten  o'clock.  " 

"Well,  how  far  between?  Was  it  quarter  past  nine,  or  half 
past  nine  o'clock — or  still  later?     Be  more  exact,  if  you  please. " 

"I  should  think  it  might  have  been  about  half  past  nine 
o'clock,  "  answered  the  witness. 

"And  you  are  sure  that  you  saw  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  give 
the  blow?     Be  particular — and  remember  that  you  are  under  oath. " 

"  I  am;  there  can  be  no  mistake  about  it. " 

"Wasn't  it  dark?" 

"No;  the  moon  was  bright." 

"Then  it  was  not  very  dark,  as  there  was  a  moon?" 

"  No,  the  moon  made  it  light  enough  for  me  to  see  it  all. " 

"  Be  particular  on  this  point.  Do  I  understand  you  to  say 
that  the  murder  was  committed  about  half  past  nine  o'clock,  and 
the  moon  was  shining  at  the  time?" 

"  Yes,  that  is  what  I  mean  to  say. " 

"Very  well;  that  is  all."      .... 

The    counsel   for    the   Commonwealth    considered    that    the 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  263 

evidence  was  too  strong  against  Armstrong  to  admit  of  a  reason- 
able doubt  of  his  guilt ;  therefore  his  plea  was  short  and  formal. 

All  eyes  now  turned  to  Lincoln.  What  could  he  say  for  the 
accused,  in  the  face  of  such  testimony?  Few  saw  any  possible 
chance  for  the  supposed  culprit  to  escape:  his  condemnation  was 
sure. 

Mr.  Lincoln  rose,  while  a  deeply  impressive  stillness  reigned 
throughout  the  court-room.  The  prisoner  sat  with  a  worried,  de- 
spairing look,  such  as  he  had  worn  ever  since  his  arrest 

His  counsel  [Lincoln]  proceeded  to  review  the  testimony  and 
called  attention  to  discrepancies  in  the  statements  of  the  principal 
witness,  which  he  showed  to  be  inconsistent  .  .  ,  and  indicating  a 
plot  against  an  innocent  man.  Then,  raising  his  clear,  full  voice  to 
a  higher  key,  and  lifting  his  long,  wiry  right  arm  above  his  head, 
as  if  about  to  annihilate  his  client's  accuser,  he  exclaimed : 

"  And  he  testifies  that  the  moon  was  shining  brightly  when  the 
deed  was  perpetrated,  between  the  hours  of  nine  and  ten  o'clock, 
when  the  moon  did  not  appear  on  that  night,  as  your  Honor's  almanac 
will  show,  until  an  hour  or  more  later,  and  consequently  the  whole 
story  is  a  fabrication." 


"Where  is  Mr.  Lincoln?"  inquired  the  acquitted  son  as  the 
crowd  pressed  around  him.  Then,  seeing  his  attorney's  tall  form 
on  the  other  side  of  the  room,  he  pushed  through  the  assembly  and 
grasped  his  deliverer  by  the  hand,  but  he  could  not  speak.  Tears 
of  gratitude  filled  the  young  man's  eyes,  expressing  far  more  than  he 
could  have  done  by  words. 

The  Pioneer  Boy,  William  M.  Thayer,  page  297, 

A  Lawyer's  Account  of  the  Great  Armstrong  Trial 

Lincoln's  skill  as  a  cross-examiner  effected  some  of  his  most 
dramatic  triumphs,  and  his  cause  celehre  is  undoubtedly  the  trial  of 
William  Armstrong  for  the  killing  of  James  Metzker,  where  his 
talents  in  this  particular  saved  the  day  for  his  client. 

The  story  of  this  now  famous  case  has  often  been  recounted, 
and  its  dramatic  features  have  been  skilfully  utilized  in  at  least  one 
volume  of  fiction.     [As  in  "The  Graysons,"  by  Edward  Eggleston.] 

The   defendant,    Willi9,iii   Armstrong,    popularly   known    as 


2  64  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Duff, "  was  a  youth  of  bad  habits,  and  on  August  29,  1857,  while 
under  the  influence  of  liquor,  he  had  quarreled  with  another  young 
man  by  the  name  of  Metzker,  and  had  beaten  him  severely.  This 
occurred  during  the  afternoon ;  but  when  the  quarrel  was  renewed 
late  at  night,  one  Norris  joined  in  the  fracas,  and  between  him  and 
Armstrong,  Metzker  received  injuries  which  resulted  in  his  death. 
Popular  indignation  against  the  accused  was  so  violent  in  Mason 
County  that  Armstrong's  lawyer  moved  for  a  change  of  venue, 
claiming  that  his  client  could  not  receive  a  fair  trial  in  the  local 
court,  and  the  judge  was  apparently  of  the  same  opinion,  for  he 
removed  the  case  to  Beardstown,  the  county -seat  of  Cass  County.  .  . 

Despite  the  gloomy  outlook,  Lincoln  took  a  hopeful  view  and 
reassured  the  anxious  mother.  Not  only  were  the  facts  against 
his  client,  but  the  Illinois  law  of  that  day  did  not  permit  a  defendant 
to  testify  in  his  own  behalf,  so  that  Armstrong  was  precluded  from 
giving  his  own  version  of  the  story  and  denying  the  testimony  of 
the  accusing  witnesses. 

The  Assistant  Prosecuting  Attorney  w^as  Mr.  J.  Henry  Shaw, 
and  Caleb  J.  Dill  worth,  another  able  lawyer,  was  associated  with 
him,  but  Lincoln  scored  against  them  at  the  start  by  securing  a  jury 
of  young  men  ^^'hose  average  age  was  not  over  twenty-five.  Most  of 
the  witnesses  were  also  young,  and  these  Lincoln  handled  so  skil- 
fully on  cross-examination  that  their  testimony  did  not  bear  heavily 
against  the  accused.  Almost  all  of  them  were  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  New  Salem,  and  whenever  the  examiner  heard  a  familiar 
name  he  quickly  took  advantage  of  the  opening  to  let  the  witness 
know  that  he  was  familiar  with  his  home,  knew  his  family,  and 
wished  to  be  his  friend.  These  tactics  succeeded  admirably,  and 
no  very  damaging  testimony  w^as  elicited  until  a  man  by  the  name 
of  Allen  took  the  stand.  This  witness,  however,  swore  that  he 
actually  saw  the  defendant  strike  the  fatal  blow  with  a  slung-shotor 
some  such  weapon;  and  Lincoln,  pressing  him  closely,  forced  him 
to  locate  the  hour  of  the  assault  as  about  eleven  at  night,  and  then 
demanded  that  he  inform  the  jury  how  he  had  managed  to  see  so 
clearly  at  that  time  of  night. 

"  By  the  moonlight,  "  answered  the  witness,  promptly. 

"Well,  was  there  light  enough  to  see  everything  that  hap- 
pened?" persisted  the  examiner. 


I,  11,  ,1  -  .       I  ll|-  Ml. 


:  ,i"i,i!,iii'.,';iLi  i'i|i|„." 

'i  '  I 
,iiii 


ti'j^iiji* 


1 1,1  i 

/t''ll    '111,    ll'''      'S'' 


y$ \#^^^^>^^^ 


From  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War. 

STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS,  SENATOR  FROM  ILLINOIS 

Called  "Judge"  Douglas  and  "The  Little  Giant,"  with  whom  Lincoln  engaged  in  the  great  debates. 
Douglas  defeated  Lincoln  in  the  election  for  Senator  in  1858,  but  Lincoln  defeated  him  for  the 
Presidency  in  i86o.     Douglas  held  Lincoln's  hat  during  Lincoln's  first  Inaugural  Address. 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  265 

The  witness  responded  that  the  moon  was  about  in  the  same 
place  that  the  sun  would  be  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  was 
almost  full — and  the  moment  the  words  were  out  of  his  mouth  the 
cross-examiner  confronted  him  with  a  calendar  showing  that  the 
moon,  which  at  its  best  was  only  slightly  past  its  first  quarter  on 
August  29,  had  afforded  practically  no  light  at  eleven  o'clock  and 
that  it  had  absolutely  set  at  seven  minutes  after  midnight.  This 
was  the  turning-point  in  the  case,  and  from  that  point  Lincoln 
carried  everything  before  him,  securing  an  acquittal  of  the  defendant 
after  a  powerful  address  to  the  jury. 

There  is  a  singular  myth  connected  with  this  case,  to  the  effect 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  played  a  trick  on  the  jurors  by  substituting  an 
old  calendar  for  the  one  for  the  year  of  the  murder,  and  virtually 
manufacturing  the  testimony  that  carried  the  day.  How  such  a 
rumor  started  no  one  can  say,  but  it  goes  far  to  prove  the  impos- 
sibility of  ever  successfully  refuting  a  lie ;  for,  though  repeatedly 
exposed,  it  still  persists  on  the  Illinois  circuit  to-day.  The  facts  are, 
of  course,  that  the  calendar  for  August  29,  1857,  shows  the  position 
of  the  moon  precisely  as  Lincoln  claimed  it,  ...  and  an  exhibit 
of  that  sort  would  be  examined  by  the  judge  and  the  opposing 
lawyers  as  well  as  by  the  jury.  .  .  .  Therefore  Lincoln  would  have 
been  a  fool  as  well  as  as  a  disreputable  trickster,  if  he  had  resorted 
to  the  asinine  practice  outlined  in  this  silly  tale,  which,  practically 
disproves  itself. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  229. 

[The  same  almanac  story  was  told  against  General  Benjamin 
F.  Butler,  a  celebrated  criminal  lawyer  in  Massachusetts. — W.  W.] 

Douglas  Accepts  Lincoln's  Challenge  with — Regrets 

With  characteristic  eagerness,  Lincoln  lost  no  time  in  beginning 
the  contest.  The  evening  of  the  day  on  which  his  nomination  was 
made,  he  addressed  the  Convention  in  a  speech  which  has  since 
become  famous  because  of  its  radical  development  of  the  test, 
"  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.  " 

A  lion  indeed  .  .  .  did  the  people  make  of  the  Democratic 
leader  three  weeks  later.  Returning  home  to  Chicago,  with  the 
glory  of  his  gallant  fight  against  the  Administration  fresh  about  him, 


266  THE  STORY-LIFE  OP  LINCOLN 

he  opened  his  canvass  there  on  the  evening  of  July  9th,  at  a  mag- 
nificent pubhc  reception. 

The  speech  made  by  the  Senator  on  that  occasion,  from  a 
balcony  of  the  Tremont  House,  was  a  vigorous  reply  to  Lincoln,  of 
whom,  in  the  flush  of  his  pride,  he  spoke  patronizingly  as  "  a  kind, 
amiable,  and  intelligent  gentleman. "  The  speaker  might  have 
added  "alert"  to  this  catalogue  of  good  qualities,  for  Lincoln  was 
present  at  the  meeting,  and  when  Douglas  had  concluded,  he 
announced,  in  answer  to  calls  for  a  speech,  that  he  would  reply  from 
the  same  place,  on  the  following  evening. 

At  the  time  appointed  the  audience  for  the  most  part  returned, 
but  Douglas,  not  deigning  to  do  so,  went  to  a  theater  instead. 
When  he  spoke  in  Bloomington,  on  the  i6th  of  July,  Lincoln  was 
again  a  watchful  auditor,  and  the  Senator's  speech  in  Springfield, 
the  next  day,  was  followed  within  a  few  hours  by  his  opponent's 
rejoinder  to'  the  Bloomington  address.  This  continued,  meeting 
after  meeting 

Then  Lincoln,  recalling  his  old  tactics  at  close  quarters,  chal- 
lenged Douglas  to  a  series  of  debates.  In  response,  the  latter  having 
accepted  the  proposition,  stipulated  that  there  be  seven  meetings, 
at  places  and  on  dates  specified  by  him 

When  the  challenge  was  received,  the  Democratic  leader  said 
to  certain  of  his  political  friends : 

"  I  do  not  feel,  between  you  and  me,  that  I  want  to  go  into  this 
debate.  The  whole  country  knows  me  and  has  me  measured. 
Lincoln,  as  regards  myself,  is  comparatively  unknown,  and  if  he 
gets  the  best  of  this  debate — and  I  want  to  say  he  is  the  ablest  man 
the  Republicans  have  got, — I  shall  lose  everything  and  Lincoln 
will  gain  everything.  Should  I  win,  I  shall  gain  but  little.  I  do  not 
want  to  go  into  the  debate  with  Abe.  " 

Moreover,  after  agreeing  to  the  proposed  meetings — for  there 
was  no  escape  from  them  in  1858,  any  more  than  there  had  been  in 
1854 — he  declared  to  some  of  his  supporters  who  spoke  slightingly 
of  his  antagonist: 

"Gentlemen,  you  do  not  know  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  have  known 
him  long  and  well,  and  I  know  that  I  shall  have  anything  but  an 
easy  task.  I  assure  you  I  would  rather  meet  any  other  man  in  the 
country,  in  this  joint  debate,  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  " 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  267 

A  more  emphatic,  if  not  so  dignified,  form  of  the  comment  was 
that  in  which  it  had  been  expressed  privately,  on  several  occasions : 

"Of  all  the  damned  Whig  rascals  about  Springfield,  Abe 
Lincoln  is  the  ablest  and  most  honest.  " 

Discussing  the  nominee  with  John  W.  Forney,  Douglas  had 
observed : 

"  I  shall  have  my  hands  full.  He  is  the  strong  man  of  his  party 
— full  of  wat,  facts,  dates — and  the  best  stump-speaker,  with  his 
droll  ways  and  dry  jokes,  in  the  West.  He  is  as  honest  as  he  is 
shrewd;  and  if  I  beat  him,  my  victory  will  be  hardly  won. " 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  94. 

Dates  of  the  Seven  Debates 

No  one  recognized  more  clearly  than  Lincoln  the  difference 
between  himself  and  his  opponent.  "With  me,"  he  said  sadly,  in 
comparing  the  careers  of  himself  and  Douglas,  "  the  race  of  ambition 
has  been  a  failure — a  flat  failure.  With  him  it  has  been  one  of 
splendid   success." 

"Senator  Douglas  is  of  world-wide  renown,"  he  said;  "all  the 
anxious  politicians  of  the  party,  or  who  have  been  of  his  party  for 
years  past,  have  been  looking  upon  him  as  certainly,  at  no  distant 
day,  to  be  the  President  of  the  United  States.  They  have  seen  in 
his  round,  jolly,  fruitful  face,  post-offices,  land-offices,  marshalships, 
and  Cabinet  appointments,  chargeships  and  foreign  missions,  burst- 
ing and  sprouting  out  in  wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to  be  laid 
hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands .... 

"On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  Presi- 
dent. In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever  seen  that  any 
cabbages  were  sprouting  out.  These  are  disadvantages,  all  taken 
together,  that  the  Republicans  labor  under.  We  have  to  fight  this 
battle  upon  principle,  and  principle  alone." 

If  one  will  take  a  map  of  Illinois  and  locate  the  points  of  the 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  debates  held  between  August  21  and  October 
15,  1858,  he  will  see  that  the  whole  State  was  traversed  in  the  con- 
test. The  first  took  place  at  Ottawa,  about  seventy- five  miles 
southwest  of  Chicago,  on  August  2 1 ;  the  second  at  Freeport,  near 
the  Wisconsin  boundary,  on  August  27.  The  third  was  in  the 
extrenic  southern  part  of  the  State,  at  Jonesboro,  on  September  15. 


2  68  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Three  days  later  the  contestants  met  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
northeast  of  Jonesboro,  at  Charleston.  The  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh 
debates  were  held  in  the  western  part  of  the  State ;  at  Galesburg, 
October  7  ;  Quincy,  October  13  ;  and  Alton,  October  15. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol,  I,  page  309. 

"  Smelt  No  Royalty  in  Our  Carriage  " 

Constant  exposure  and  fatigue  were  unavoidable  in  meeting 
these  engagements.  Both  contestants  spoke  almost  every  day 
through  the  intervals  between  the  joint  debates;  and  as  railroad 
communication  in  Illinois  in  1858  was  still  very  incomplete,  thev 
were  often  obliged  to  resort  to  horse,  carriage  or  steamer  to  reach 
the  desired  points. 

Judge  Douglas  succeeded,   however,   in  making  this  difficult 

journey    something   of   a   triumphal   procession On   the 

Illinois  Central  Railroad  he  had  always  a  special  car,  sometimes  a 
special  train.  Frequently  he  swept  by  Lincoln,  side-tracked  in  an 
accommodation  or  freight  train. 

"The  gentleman  in  that  car  evidently  smelt  no  royalty  in  our 
carriage,  "  laughed  Lincoln  one  day,  as  he  watched  from  the  caboose 
of  a  laid-up  freight  train  the  decorated  special  of  Douglas  flying  by. 

It  was  only  when  Lincoln  left  the  railroad  and  crossed  the 
prairie  to  speak  at  some  isolated  town,  that  he  went  in  state.  The 
attentions  he  received  were  often  very  trying  to  him.  He  detested 
what  he  called  "fizzlegigs  and  fireworks,"  and  would  squirm  in 
disgust  when  his  friends  gave  him  a  genuine  prairie  ovation. 
Usually,  when  he  was  going  to  a  point  distant  from  the  railway,  a 
' '  distinguished  citizen' '  met  him  at  the  station  nearest  the  place  with 
a  carriage.  When  they  were  come  within  two  or  three  miles  of  the 
town,  a  long  procession  with  banners  and  band  would  appear,  wind- 
ing across  the  prairie  to  meet  the  speaker.  A  speech  of  greeting  was 
made,  and  then  the  ladies  of  the  entertainment  committee  would 
present  Lincoln  with  flowers,  sometimes  even  winding  a  garland  ' 

about  his  head  and  lank  figure At  the  Ottawa  debate  the 

enthusiasm  of  his  supporters  was  so  great  that  they  insisted  on 
carrying  him  from  the  platform  to  the  house  where  he  was  to  be 
entertained.  Powerless  to  escape  from  the  clutches  of  his  admirers 
he  could  only  cry ; 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  269 


"Don't,  boys;  let  me  down;  come  now,  don't!" 
On  arrival  at  the  towns  where  the  joint  debates  were  held, 
Douglas  was  always  met  by  a  brass  band  and  a  salute  of  thirty -two 
guns  (the  Union  was  composed  of  thirty-two  States  in  1858),  and 
was  escorted  to  the  hotel  in  the  finest  equipage  to  be  had.  Lincoln's 
supporters  took  delight  in  showing  their  contempt  for  Douglas's 
elegance  by  affecting  a  Republican  simplicity,  often  carrying  their 
candidate  through  the  streets  on  a  high  and  unadorned  hay-rick. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  311. 

Average  of  10,000  People  Attended  Each  Debate — Bands  and  Banners 

The  scenes  in  the  towns  on  the  occasion  of  the  debates  were 
perhaps  never  equalled  at  any  other  of  the  hustings  of  this  country. 
No  distance  seemed  too  great  for  the  people  to  go ;  no  vehicle  too 
slow  or  fatiguing.  At  Charleston  there  was  a  great  delegation  of 
men,  women  and  children  present  which  had  come  in  a  long  pro- 
cession from  Indiana  by  farm  wagons,  afoot,  on  horseback,  and  in 
carriages. 

The  crowds  at  three  or  four  of  the  debates  were  for  that  day 
immense.  There  were  estimated  to  be  from  eight  thousand  to 
fourteen  thousand  people  at  Quincy,  some  six  thousand  at  Alton, 
from  ten  thousand  to  fifteen  thousand  at  Charleston,  some  twenty 
thousand  at  Ottawa.  Many  of  those  at  Ottawa  came  the  night 
before 

When  the  crowd  was  massed  at  the  place  of  the  debate,  the 
scene  was  one  of  the  greatest  hubbub  and  confusion.  On  the 
comers  of  the  squares,  and  scattered  around  the  outskirts  of  the 
crowd,  were  "fakirs"  of  every  description,  selling  pain-killers  and 
ague  cures,  watermelons  and  lemonade ;  jugglers  and  beggars  plied 
their  trades,  and  all  the  brass  bands  within  twenty -five  miles  tooted 
and  pounded  at  "Hail  Columbia,  Happy  Land,"  or  "Columbia, 
the  Gem  of  the  Ocean. " 

Conspicuous  in  the  procession  at  all  the  points  was  what 
Lincoln  called  the  "  Basket  of  Flowers,  "  thirty -two  young  girls  in  a 
resplendent  car,  representing  the  Union.  At  Charleston  a  thirty- 
third  young  woman  rode  behind  the  car,  representing  Kansas.    .    .    . 

The  mottoes  at  the  different  meetings  epitomized  the  populai 


2  70  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

conception  of  the  issues  and  the  candidates.     Among  the  Lincoln 
sentiments  were : 

"Abethe  Giant-Killer.  " 

"  Westward  the  Star  of  Empire  takes  its  way ; 

The  girls  link  on  to  Lincoln,  their  mothers  were  for  Clay." 

"Free  Territories  and  Free  Men, 
Free  Pulpits  and  Free  Preachers, 
Free  Press  and  a  Free  Pen, 
Free  Schools  and  Free  Teachers, " 

T/te  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  312. 


Douglas,  then  Lincoln,  at  Havana,  Illinois 

"The  next  morning,  August  13th,  we  boarded  the  steamer 
Editor  and  went  to  Havana,  Mason  County.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in 
excellent  spirits.     Several  of  his  old  Whig  friends  were  on  board,  and 

the  journey  was  filled  up  with  politics  and  story -telling 

From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  our  travels  the  fund  of  anecdotes 
never  failed,  and,  wherever  we  happened  to  be,  all  the  people 
within  ear-shot  would  begin  to  work  their  way  up  to  this  inimitable 
story-teller 

"Although  the  intervals  between  the  meetings  were  filled  up 
brimful  with  mirth  in  this  way,  Mr.  Lincoln  indulged  very  sparingly 
in  humor  in  his  speeches.  I  asked  him  one  day  why  he  did  not 
oftener  turn  the  laugh  on  Douglas.  He  replied  that  he  was  too 
much  in  earnest,  and  that  it  was  doubtful  whether  turning  the  laugh 
on  anybody  really  gained  any  votes. 

"  We  arrived  at  Havana  while  Douglas  was  still  speaking. 
The  deputation  that  met  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  (steamboat)  landing 
suggested  that  he  should  go  up  to  the  grove  where  the  Democratic 
meeting  was  going  on  and  hear  what  Douglas  was  saying.  But  he 
declined  to  do  so,  saying : 

"  'The  Judge  was  so  put  out  by  my  listening  to  him  at  Bloom- 
ington  and  Clinton  that  I  promised  to  leave  him  alone  at  his  own 
meetings  for  the  rest  of  the  campaign.  I  understand  that  he  is 
calling  Trumbull  and  myself  liars,  and  if  he  should  see  me  in  the 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  271 

crowd  he  might  be  so  ashamed  of  himself  as  to  omit  the  most  telHng 
part  of  his  argument.' 

"I  strolled  up  to  the  meeting  just  before  its  conclusion,  and 
there  met  a  friend  who  had  heard  the  whole.  He  was  in  a  state  of 
high  indignation.  He  said  that  Douglas  must  certainly  have  been 
drinking  before  he  came  on  the  platform,  because  he  called  Lincoln 
*a  liar,  a  coward,  a  wretch,  and  a  sneak.' 

"When  Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  on  the  following  day,  he  took 
notice  of  Douglas's  hard  words  in  this  way: 

"  'I  am  informed  that  my  distinguished  friend  yesterday 
became  a  little  excited,  nervous  (?)  perhaps,  and  he  said  something 
about  fighting,  as  though  looking  to  a  personal  encounter  between 
himself  and  me.  Did  anybody  in  this  audience  hear  him  use  such 
language?'  ('Yes,'  'y^s.')  'I  am  informed  further,  that  somebody 
in  his  audience,  rather  more  excited  or  nervous  than  himself,  took 
off  his  coat  and  offered  to  take  the  job  off  Judge  Douglas's  hands 
and  fight  Lincoln  himself.  Did  anybody  here  witness  that  warlike 
proceeding?'  (Laughter  and  cries  of  'y^^.')  'Well,  I  merely  desire  to 
say  that  I  shall  fight  neither  Judge  Douglas  nor  his  second.  I  shall 
not  do  this  for  two  reasons,  which  I  will  explain.  In  the  first  place, 
a  fight  would  prove  nothing  which  is  in  issue  in  this  election.  It 
might  establish  that  Judge  Douglas  is  a  more  muscular  man  than 
myself,  or  it  might  show  that  I  am  a  more  muscular  man  than  Judge 
Douglas.  But  this  subject  is  not  referred  to  in  the  Cincinnati  plat- 
form, nor  in  either  of  the  Springfield  platforms.  Neither  result 
would  prove  him  right  or  me  wrong.  And  so  of  the  gentleman  who 
offered  to  do  his  fighting  for  him.  If  my  fighting  Judge  Douglas 
would  not  prove  anything,  it  would  certainly  prove  nothing  for  me 
to  fight  his  bottle-holder. 

"  'My  second  reason  for  not  having  a  personal  encounter  with 
Judge  Douglas  is  that  I  don't  believe  he  wants  it  himself.  He  and  I 
are  about  the  best  friends  in  the  world,  and  when  we  get  together  he 
would  no  more  think  of  fighting  me  than  of  fighting  his  wife.  There- 
fore, when  the  Judge  talked  about  fighting  he  was  not  giving  vent  to 
any  ill-feeling  of  his  own,  but  was  merely  trying  to  excite — ^well,  let 
us  say  enthusiasm  against  me  on  the  part  of  his  audience.  And,  as 
I  find  he  was  tolerably  successful  in  this,  we  will  call  it  quits.'  ' ' 

Horace  White  in  Herndon's  Lincoln,  "William  H.  Herndon  and  Jegse  W.  Wejk,  Vol.  II,  page  ;oi. 


272  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  Let  Me  Entreat  You  to  Come  Back  !" 

"  My  countrymen,  if  you  have  been  taught  doctrines  conflict- 
ing with  the  great  landmarks  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence ; 
if  you  have  listened  to  suggestions  which  would  take  away  from  its 
grandeur  and  mutilate  the  fair  symmetry  of  its  proportions ;  if  you 
have  been  inclined  to  believe  that  all  men  are  not  created  equal  in 
those  inalienable  rights  in  our  chart  of  liberty,  let  me  entreat  you  to 
come  back !     Return  to  the  fountain  whose  waters  spring  close  by 

the  blood  of  the  Revolution You  may  do  anything 

with  me  you  choose,  if  you  will  but  heed  these  sacred  principles; 
you  may  not  only  defeat  me  for  the  Senate,  but  you  may  take  me 

and  put  me  to  death I  charge  you  to  drop  every  paltry 

and  insignifipant  thought  for  any  man's  success.  It  is  nothing;  I 
am  nothing;  Judge  Douglas  is  nothing.  But  do  not  destroy  that 
immortal  emblem  of  Humanity — the  Declaration  of  Independence." 

Life  and  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln.     Speech  at  Lewiston,  111.,  August    17,    i8s8.     Douglas  De- 
bate, Vol.  I,  page  127. 

[The  Chicago  Tribune,  commenting  on  this  speech,  called  it 
"  Lincoln's  greatest  inspiration." — W.  W.] 

The  First  of  the  Great  Lincoln-Douglas  Debates,  at  Ottawa,  Illinois 

It  was  half  past  two  in  the  afternoon  before  a  great  shout 
announced  the  arrival  of  the  champions,  and  a  short,  stout,  but 
powerfully  built  man  forced  his  way  through  the  crowd  and,  step- 
ping to  the  edge  of  the  platform,  bowed  gracefully  to  the  cheering 
multitudes.  There  was  confidence  in  every  line  of  Douglas's 
strong,  clear-cut,  clean-shaven  face;  confidence  and  complete  self- 
possession  in  his  every  movement — confidence  and  determination 
in  the  glance  he  cast  at  his  awkward  rival,  who,  accompanied  by  his 
■host,  Mayor  Glover,  and  the  Congressional  candidate,  Owen  Love- 
joy,  clumsily  acknowledged  the  genuine  burst  of  acclamation  which 
greeted  his  appearance. 

No  time  was  wasted  in  introducing  the  speakers.  Neither  of 
them  required  such  a  formality,  and  yet  it  is  improbable  that 
a  majority  of  the  spectators  had  ever  seen  either  man  before. 
Certainly  Lincoln  was  not  personally  known  to  many  men  in 
Illinois  outside  of  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit,  and  Douglas  had  spent 
far  more  time  in  Washington  than  he  had  in  his  own  State  during 
the  last  six  years,  while  the  population  was  increasing  by  leaps 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  273 

and  bounds.  Douglas's  reputation  was,  however,  national  in  its 
scope — every  one  knew  his  record — while  Lincoln  was  compara- 
tively unknown.  Such  were  the  advantages  and  disadvantages 
of  the  combatants  as  Douglas  rose  and,  with  a  brief  reference  to  the 
vast  audience  confronting  him,  plunged  at  once  into  an  argument 
attacking  Lincoln  and  the  Black  Republicans  as  Abolitionists  in 
disguise.  Almost  from  his  opening  words  the  speaker  assumed  an 
air  of  superiority,  stating  his  facts  in  a  convincingly  authoritative 
tone  and  belittling  his  adversary's  political  pretensions  and  gen- 
erally treating  him  with  such  marked  condescension  that  many  of 
Lincoln's  friends,  watching  his  dark,  homely,  care-worn  face,  began 
to  fear  that  he  had  displayed  more  courage  than  wisdom  in  courting 
comparison  with  so  brilliant  a  rival.  Douglas  was  not  slow  to  press 
his  advantage,  and,  encouraged  by  the  laughter  of  his  auditors,  he 
proceeded  to  attack  his  opponent's  doctrines. 

"Let  me  read  a  part  of  them,"  he  continued,  contemptuously. 
"  In  his  speech  at  Springfield  to  the  convention  which  nominated 
him  for  the  Senate,  Lincoln  said :  'A  house  divided  against  itself 
can  not  stand.  I  believe  this  Government  can  not  endure  per- 
manently half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved — I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall — but  I  do  expect  it 
will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates 
will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  lawful  for  all  the  States — 
old  as  well  as  new — North  as  well  as  South!'  " 

The  words  were  scarcely  uttered  before  a  spontaneous  burst  of 
cheering  rent  the  air,  swelling  to  a  mighty  shout  of  approval  and 
admiration  from  thousands  of  lusty  lungs. 

For  a  moment  Douglas  stood  disconcerted  by  the  unwelcome 
demonstration,  but,  almost  immediately  recovering  his  self-posses- 
sion, he  savagely  attacked  the  interrupters. 

"I  am  delighted  to  hear  you,  Black  Republicans!"  he  roared. 
"  I  have  no  doubt  that  doctrine  expresses  your  sentiments,  and  I 
will  prove  to  you  now  that  it  is  revolutionary  and  destructive  of 
this  Government!" 

From  that  moment,  however,  the  orator  changed  his  tactics, 
18 


From  The  Trtie  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Elbridge  S.  Brooks. 

A  LINCOLN-DOUGLAS  DEBATE 

Each  debate  lasted  three  hours,  the  speakers  alternating.  If  Lincoln  spoke  first  he  had  an  hour,  then 
Douglas  took  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  Lincoln  spoke  a  half  hour  in  closing.  It  was  by  the  wit, 
sound  sense  and  good  humor  of  his  immediate  half-hour  replies  that  Lincoln  scored  so  heavily 
against  Douglas  before  audiences  of  many  thousands  who  could  all  hear  Lincoln's  voice.  At  first 
Douglas  attempted  to  confuse  and  worry  his  opponent  with  smart  questions,  until  Lincoln,  ly 
sharp  retorts,  put  a  stop  to  this  annoyance.  This  illustration  shows  one  of  these  unwarranted 
interruptions. 

C?74) 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  275 

indulging  in  no  further  personal  comments  and  devoting  himself 
to  serious  argument  and  pointed  question  until  he  again  fixed  the 
attention  of  his  hearers  and,  regaining  his  confidence  and  good 
temper,  closed  his  speech  to  a  burst  of  well-earned  cheering. 

Then  Lincoln  slowly  rose  from  his  chair  and  faced  the  expect- 
ant multitude,  presenting  a  contrast  to  his  opponent  almost  as 
painful  as  it  was  apparent.  His  long,  lank  figure  was  clothed  in 
garments  as  rusty  and  ill-fitting  as  the  Judge's  were  fresh  and  well 
made.  His  coarse  black  hair  was  disheveled,  his  sad,  anxious  face 
displayed  no  confidence,  his  posture  was  an  ungainly  stoop,  his 
manner  was  abjection  itself.  For  a  moment  he  gazed  over  the 
audience  as  though  at  a  loss  for  words,  and  when  at  last  be  began 
speaking  another  disappointment  chilled  his  supporters'  hopes. 
His  voice  was  unpleasantly  high  pitched,  penetrating,  and  almost 
shrill,  and  his  opening  sentences,  commonplace  enough  in  them- 
selves, were  uttered  hesitatingly,  as  though  he  were  groping  for 
words.  Finally  he  took  a  note-book  from  his  pocket  and  asked 
permission  of  the  audience  to  read  part  of  a  printed  speech  he 
had  made  in  1854. 

"Put  on  your  specs!"  called  some  one  in  the  crowd,  and  the 
audience  roared,  expecting  a  smart  reply.  But  no  repartee  came 
from  the  man  whose  reputation  as  a  wit  and  a  jester  was  supposedly 
assured. 

"Yes,  sir,  I  am  obliged  to  do  so,"  he  responded  gravely.  "I 
am  no  longer  a  young  man." 

The  disappointment  of  the  speaker's  friends  was  plainly  visible, 
but  even  as  they  strove  to  conceal  their  embarrassment  their  cham- 
pion began  to  retrieve  himself.  Still  speaking  slowly,  but  with  gath- 
ering energy,  he  gradually  straightened  to  his  full  height,  his  voice 
lost  something  of  its  rasp  and  gained  in  volume  and  quality,  his  eyes 
brightened,  his  face  became  more  animated,  his  gestures  freer,  and 
his  words  commenced  to  flow  more  easily.  Little  by  little  the 
hopes  of  his  supporters  revived  and  all  signs  of  restlessness  disap- 
peared, the  audience  listening  silently  and  with  growing  interest, 
for  Lincoln's  voice,  carrying  much  further  than  his  opponent's, 
reached  the  very  outskirts  of  the  crowd.  Those  who  had  come 
expecting  to  be  amused  by  anecdotes  had  reason  to  feel  aggrieved, 
however,  for  no  funny  stories  or  drolleries  of  any  kind  fell  from  the 


276  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

speaker's  lips,  yet  the  vast  assemblage  listened  quietly  to  every 
word  he  spoke.  It  was  no  sudden  burst  of  eloquence  nor  any  trick 
of  declamation  which  won  that  tribute  of  respectful  silence,  and  yet 
the  man  was  eloquent  with  his  earnest  sincerity,  his  simple  logic, 
his  clear  analysis,  his  orderly  presentment  of  intelligent  argument. 
With  steadily  increasing  force  he  spoke  directly  to  those  before  him, 
his  wonderful  eyes  seeking  individuals  in  the  crowd  and  holding 
them  enthralled  until  each  hearer  felt  himself  the  one  distinguished 
and  specially  addressed.  There  was  no  escaping  him;  he  appealed 
personally  to  all  within  sound  of  his  voice,  meeting  his  adversary's 
arguments  with  a  clarity  and  simplicity  of  statement  that  all  could 
grasp,  until  he  dominated  the  audience,  swaying  it  to  his  will. 
Then  slowly,  and  almost  imperceptibly,  he  passed  to  his  peroration, 
his  sentences  ringing  out  boldly  and  defiantly  and  arousing  a  tumult 
of  cheering  that  died  down  only  to  burst  out  again,  swelling  to  shout 
after  shout  of  frenzied  approbation  as  he  closed. 

With  half  an  hour  at  his  disposal  for  reply,  Douglas  struggled 
hard  to  stem  this  tide  of  popular  approval  and  regain  his  lost  ad- 
vantage, but  in  vain.  At  the  close  of  his  rejoinder  the  audience 
applauded  and  then — as  though  by  common  consent — stormed  the 
platform  and  carried  his  opponent  off  on  their  shoulders,  five  thou- 
sand men  struggling  to  share  in  the  ovation. 

A  Battle  of  the  Giants,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  Collier's  for  February  9,  1907,  page  14, 

"Hold  My  Coat  while  I  Stone  Stephen !" 

Douglas  led  off  with  so  captivating  a  discourse  that  his  oppo- 
nent's adherents  believed  the  battle  was  won.  .  .  .  But  Lincoln 
got  up  as  soon  as  the  cheers  died  away,  looking  taller  and  more 
angular  than  ever.  Taking  off  his  long  linen  duster,  he  dropped  it  on 
the  arm  of  a  young  bystander,  remarking  in  his  far-pervading  voice : 

"  Hold  my  coat  while  I  stone  Stephen!" 

This  went  far  toward  annulling  the  good  effect  of  Stephen 
A.  Douglas's  harangue  and  Lincoln  was  heard  with  keen  attention. 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  77. 

A  Good- Humored  Retort 

"Fellow-Citizens:  My  friend,  Judge  Douglas,  made  the 
startling  announcement  to-day  that  the  Whigs  are  all  dead. 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  277 

"  If  that  be  so,  fellow -citizens,  you  will  now  experience  the 
novelty  of  hearing  a  speech  from  a  dead  man;  and  I  suppose  you 
might  properly  say,  in  the  language  of  the  old  hymn: 

"  'Hark!  from  the  tombs  a  doleful  sound.'  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  115. 

"Nasby"  Contrasts  Lincoln  and  Douglas 

The  difference  between  the  two  men  was  illustrated  that  day 
in  their  opening  remarks.     Lincoln  said  (I  quote  from  memory) : 

"  I  have  had  no  immediate  conference  with  Judge  Douglas,  but 
I  am  sure  that  he  and  I  will  agree  that  your  entire  silence  when  I 
speak  and  he  speaks  will  he  most  agreeable  to  us.  " 

Douglas  said  at  the  beginning  of  his  speech :  "  The  highest 
compliment  you  can  pay  me  is  by  observing  a  strict  silence.  I 
desire  rather  to  he  heard  than  applauded. " 

The  inborn  modesty  of  the  one  and  the  boundless  vanity  of  the 
other  could  not  be  better  illustrated.  Lincoln  claimed  nothing  for 
himself — Douglas  spoke  as  if  applause  must  follow  his  utterances. 

The  character  of  the  two  men  was  still  better  illustrated  in  their 
speeches.  The  self-sufficiency  of  Douglas  in  his  opening  might 
be  pardoned,  for  he  had  been  fed  on  applause;  ....  but  his 
being  a  popular  idol  could  not  justify  the  demagogy  that  saturated 
the  speech  itself.  Douglas  was  the  demagogue  all  the  way  through. 
There  was  no  trick  of  presentation  that  he  did  not  use.  He  sup- 
pressed facts,  twisted  conclusions,  and  perverted  history.  He 
wriggled  and  turned  and  dodged;  he  appealed  to  prejudices;  in 
short,  it  was  evident  that  what  he  was  laboring  for  was  Douglas  and 
nothing  else 

Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  kept  strictly  to  the  questions  at 
issue,  and  no  one  could  doubt  but  that  the  cause  for  which  he  was 
speaking  was  the  only  thing  he  had  at  heart;  that  his  personal 

interests  did  not  weigh  a  particle He  knew  that  the 

people  had  intelligence  enough  to  strike  the  average  correctly.  His 
great  strength  was  in  trusting  the  people  instead  of  considering 
them  as  babes  in  arms.     He  did  not  profess  to  know  everything. 

The  audience  admired  Douglas,  but  they  respected  his  simple- 
minded  opponent. 

Reminisc-j'^ces  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.Locke   ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby").     Edited  by  Allen 
Thoriidike  Rice,  page  443. 


2  78  THE  STORY  LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Discussing  the  Dred  Scott  Decision 

From  the  moment  of  collision  it  was  evident  that  a  great 
struggle  was  imminent,  and,  despite  the  applause  and  flattery  of 
his  supporters,  Douglas  must  have  known  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that 
he  had  at  last  met  his  match. 

Brilliant  and  resourceful  as  he  was  in  popular  appeal,  his 
dexterity  with  the  weapons  of  debate  was  more  than  offset  by 
Lincoln's  better  knowledge  of  law  and  his  greater  familiarity  with 
legal  argument,  and  the  contest  hinged  largely  upon  the  effect  of 
the  Dred  Scott  case  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

Dred  Scott,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a  negro  whose  Missouri 
master,  after  a  short  residence  in  Illinois,  had  moved  into  what  was 
then  Wisconsin  Territory  (now  Minnesota)  with  the  slave,  and, 
after  living  there  for  a  time,  had  returned  to  Missouri  and  sold 
him. 

Scott  thereupon  sued  in  a  Missouri  court  to  establish  his  free- 
dom, claiming  that  his  residence  in  the  free  State  of  Illinois  and  the 
free  Territory  of  Wisconsin  had  emancipated  him.  The  first  local 
court  sustained  his  contention,  but  the  decision  was  reversed  on 
appeal.  He  was  then  sold  to  a  man  in  New  York,  and  began 
another  suit  in  the  federal  courts  of  St.  Louis,  which  promptly 
ruled  against  him. 

The  case  was  then  appealed  to  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  at  Washington,  where  the  plaintiff  was  represented  by 
Montgomery  Blair  and  George  Ticknor  Curtis,  and  the  defendant 
by  Reverdy  Johnson,  whom  Lincoln  had  hoped  to  meet  in  the 
McCormick  case,  and  after  two  elaborate  hearings  Scott  was 
declared  a  slave  by  a  divided  vote  of  the  judges,  two  of  whom  wrote 
dissenting  opinions.  This  decision  of  the  highest  tribunal  in  the 
country  was  expected  to  settle  the  slavery  issue,  for  it  decreed  pro- 
tection to  slave-owners  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  property  wherever 
situated,  as  a  constitutional  right. 

Lincoln,  however,  promptly  challenged  the  authority  of  any 
court  to  dispose  of  a  great  national  issue  such  as  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, and  early  in  the  debate  with  Douglas  he  forced  the  discussion 
of  this  subject  to  the  fore. 

"  In  the  field  of  argumentative  statement,  Mr.  Webster  at  the 
time  of  his  death  had  no  rival  in  America,  "  says  Mr.  Boutwell,  "  but 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  279 


he  has  left  nothing  more  exact,  explicit  and  convincing  than  this 
extract  from  Lincoln's  first  speech  in  the  great  debate : 

"  'If  any  man  choose  to  enslave  another,  no  third  man  shall  be 
allowed  to  object,' 

which  embodies  the  substance  of  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  in  the  Dred  Scott  case.  " 

Douglas  instantly  responded  by  declaring  that  those  who 
resisted  the  finding  of  the  Court  were  traitors  fomenting  revolution, 
and  that  his  adversary's  duty  as  a  lawyer  was  to  uphold  the  law  and 
discountenance  resistance  to  its  decrees.  But  Lincoln's  reply  was 
so  calm,  fair,  dignified,  and  professionally  correct,  that  it  not  only 
put  his  accuser  completely  in  the  wrong,  but  placed  his  opposition 
on  a  high  and  perfectly  legal  plane : 

"We  believe  as  much  as  Judge  Douglas  (perhaps  more)  in 
obedience  to  and  respect  for  the  judicial  department  of  govern- 
ment,"  he  asserted.  "But  we  think  the  Dred  Scott  decision  is 
erroneous.  We  know  the  Court  that  made  it  has  often  overruled 
its  own  decisions  and  we  shall  do  what  we  can  to  have  it  overrule 
this.  We  offer  no  resistance  to  it.  If  this  important  decision  had 
been  made  by  the  unanimous  concurrence  of  the  judges,  and  without 
any  apparent  partizan  bias  and  in  accordance  with  legal  public 
expectation  and  the  steady  practice  of  the  departments  throughout 
our  history,  and  had  been  in  no  part  based  on  assumed  historical 
facts  which  are  not  really  true;  or  if,  wanting  in  some  of  these,  it 
had  been  before  the  Court  more  than  once,  and  had  there  been 
affirmed  and  reaffirmed  through  a  course  of  years,  it  then  might 
be,  perhaps  would  be,  factious,  nay,  even  revolutionary,  not  to 
acquiesce  in  it  as  a  precedent.  But  when,  as  is  true,  we  find  it 
wanting  in  all  these  claims  to  the  public  confidence,  it  is  not  resist- 
ance, it  is  not  factious,  it  is  not  even  disrespectful,  to  treat  it  as  not 
having  yet  quite  established  a  settled  doctrine  for  the  country.  " 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  270. 

The  Conference  over  Lincoln's  Proposed  Questions 

"The  next  joint  debate  was  to  take  place  at  Freeport  six  days 
later.  In  the  interval,  Mr.  Lincoln  addressed  meetings  in  Henry, 
Marshall  County;  Augusta,  Hancock  County;  and  Macomb,  McDon- 


28o  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

ough  County.  During  this  interval  he  prepared  the  answer  to  the 
seven  questions  put  to  him  by  Douglas  at  Ottawa,  and  wrote  the 
four  questions  that  he  propounded  to  Douglas  at  Freeport.  The 
second  of  these,  viz : 

"  'Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Territory,  in  any  lawful 
way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude 
slavery  from  its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  State  Consti- 
tution ? ' 

was  made  the  subject  of  a  conference  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  a 
number  of  his  friends  from  Chicago,  among  whom  were  Norman  B. 
Judd  and  Dr.  C.  H.  Ray,  the  latter  the  chief  editor  of  the  (Chicago) 
Tribune.  .  This  conference  took  place  at  the  town  of  Dixon.  I  was 
not  present,  but  Doctor  Ray  told  me  that  all  who  were  there 
counseled  Mr.  Lincoln  not  to  put  that  question  to  Douglas,  because 
.  he  would  answer  it  in  the  affirmative  and  thus  probably  secure  his 
re-election.  .  .  .  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that  to  draw  an  affirmative 
answer  from  Douglas  on  this  question  was  exactly  what  he  wanted." 

Horace  White  in  Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  io8. 

"  The  Battle  of  i860  Is  Worth  a  Hundred  of  This  " 

"If  he  does  that,  "  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "he  can  never  be  Presi- 
dent. "     "  But,  "  said  the  friends,  "he  may  be  Senator,  " 

"Perhaps,"  he  replied,  "but  I  am  after  larger  game;  the 
battle  of  i860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  151. 

The  Second  Debate,  at  Freeport — Its  Fatal  Question  and  Answer 

Freeport,  the  place  of  their  next  meeting  (August  27th),  was 
in  a  region  where,  as  in  the  Ottawa  district,  even  the  "regular" 
Democrats  had  repeatedly  indorsed  what  Douglas  was  now  calling- 
Abolition  sentiments. 

The  opening  was  made  lively  and  picturesque  by  the  arrival  of 
the  Little  Giant  in  a  gay  barouche  drawn  by  four  white  horses  and 
loudly  greeted  by  the  throng;  and  still  wilder  applause  hailed  the 
advent  of  Lincoln,  whose  chariot  was  a  plain  "prairie  schooner." 

This  occasion  is  chiefly  memorable  for  one  of  the  series  of 
questions  propounded  to  Douglas  and  for  the  answer  given,  which 
bore  on  his  subsequent  career  with  the  power  of  inexorable  fate. 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  281 

After  some  preliminary  remarks,  Lincoln  said  of  the  questions 
asked  of  him  at  Ottawa : 

"  I  now  propose  that  I  shall  answer  any  of  the  interrogatories 
upon  condition  that  he  will  answer  questions  from  me  not  exceeding 
the  same  number.  I  give  him  an  opportunity  to  respond.  [A  pause.] 
The  Judge  remains  silent.  I  will  now  say  that  I  will  answer  his 
interrogatories,  whether  he  answers  mine  or  not ;  and  after  I  have 
done  so,  I  shall  propound  mine  to  him. " 

He  then  read  the  seven  questions  of  Douglas,  answering  in 
substance  that  he  was  .  .  .  ,  "  impliedl}^  if  not  expressly, 
pledged  to  a  belief  in  the  right  and  duty  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  all  the  United  States  Territories ;  and  was  not  generally 
opposed  to  the  honest  acquisition  of  territory.  " 

After  a  fuller  expression  of  his  views  on  some  of  these  points, 
he  propounded  four  questions  to  Douglas,  of  which  the  second  was 
as  follows: 

"Can  the  people  of  a  United  States  Territory,  in  any  lawful 
way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  exclude 
slavery  from  its  limits?" 

The  friends  of  Lincoln  were  "thunderstruck"  when  they  heard 
this  question  read  from  the  stand,  feeling  that  this  insured  their 
candidate's  defeat. 

When  Douglas  in  his  response  came  to  this  interrogatory,  he 
read  it  with  assurance  and  exultation  in  his  voice,  promptly  an- 
swered it  in  the  affirmative,  and  was  "immensely  applauded."  It 
seemed  as  if  this  were  just  the  opportunity  he  had  longed  for. 

"It  matters  not, "  he  said,  "what  way  the  Supreme  Court  may 
hereafter  decide  as  to  the  abstract  question  as  to  whether  slavery 
may  or  may  not  go  into  a  Territory  under  the  Constitution,  the 
people  have  the  lawful  means  to  introduce  it  or  exclude  it,  as  they 
please,  for  the  reason  that  slavery  cannot  exist  a  day  or  an  hour 
anywhere  unless  it  is  supported  by  local  police  regulations.  ...  I 
hope  Mr.  Lincoln  deems  my  answer  satisfactory  on  that  point." 

Lincoln's  questioning  brought  so  explicit  and  direct  an  answer 
at  this  time — in  spite  of  the  Supreme  Court's  decision — as  to  make 
a  positive  impression  at  the  South.  Douglas  in  vain  tried  to 
remove  it,  even  quoting  from  a  speech  made  by  Jefferson  Davis  in 


2S2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Maine,  before  the  Kansas-Nebraska  act  was  passed,  as  sustaining 
his  own  view.  He  was  not  forgiven,  and  on  no  one  did  his  Freeport 
avowal  take  effect  more  adversely  to  Douglas  than  upon  Jefferson 
Davis  himself.  By  forcing  Douglas  to  commit  himself  upon  this 
question  in  exact  terms,  Lincoln  counted  on  widening  the  breach  in 
the  Democratic  party  to  the  advantage  of  the  Republican  cause, 
whatever  the  first  effect  on  himself.  His  sagacity  in  this  will  not 
now  be  disputed. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidewy,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  177, 

The  "Thinness"  of  Douglas's  Freeport  Sophism 

This  rare  sophism,  "as  thin,"  to  use  a  Lincolnian  illustration, 
"  as  the  homeopathic  soup  that  was  made  by  boiling  the  shadow  of  a 
pigeon  that  had  been  starved  to  death,"  had  nevertheless  served 
Douglas's  purpose  with  the  Democrats  of  Illinois.  But  how  had  it 
affected  his  popularity  with  the  party  at  large,  and,  above  all, 
would  it,  as  Lincoln  had  predicted,  cost  him  the  Presidency? 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  117. 

Douglas  Falls  into  Lincoln's  Trap 

The  answer  to  this  question  required  Douglas  to  interpret  the 
Dred  Scott  decision.  If  he  replied  in  the  negative  the  people  of 
Illinois  would  repudiate  him,  because  they  would  not  countenance 
the  idea  that  the  mischief  had  been  done  and  that  slavery  had 
already  been  forced  upon  the  Territories.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
answered  that  the  Territories  were  still  free  to  choose  or  reject 
slavery,  he  would  have  to  explain  away  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
which  guaranteed  protection  to  slave  property  in  the  Territories  as 
a  constitutional  right;  and  this  w^ould  displease  the  vSouthem  Democ- 
racy, which  was  then  listening  to  his  every  word  to  determine 
whether  he  was  or  was  not  a  safe  Presidential  candidate.     .     .     , 

As  soon  as  he  had  uttered  it,  Douglas  must  have  seen  that  his 
answer  involved  a  gross  blunder  in  law ;  but  if  he  had  any  doubt  on 
the  matter,  Lincoln  speedily  dispelled  it.  'How  could  the  constitu- 
tional right  of  peaceful  enjoyment  of  slave  property  guaranteed  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case  be  canceled  by  police  or  any  other  hostile 
legislation?'  he  demanded.  Any  such  ordinance  or  law  would  be 
gontrary  to  the  Constitution  and  absolutely  void.     Either  Judge 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  283 

Douglas's  answer  or  the  doctrine  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  bad  law, 
for  the  one  was  inconsistent  with  the  other. 

But  illogical  as  it  was,  this  fallacy  caught  the  popular  fancy, 
and  Douglas,  seeing  that  it  satisfied  his  constituents,  held  to  it  and 
was  elected  to  the  Senate.  Nevertheless,  as  Lincoln  anticipated, 
his  blunder  in  law  cost  him  the  Presidency,  and  not  long  afterward 
Judah  Benjamin,  one  of  the  most  ardent  and  able  representatives 
of  the  South,  arraigned  him  as  a  renegade  and  traitor. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  276. 

"It's  Too  Big  a  Thing  for  You;  You  Will  Never  Get  It!" 

He  and  I  met  accidentally,  about  nine  o'clock  on  a  liot,  sultry 
evening,  at  a  flag  railroad  station  about  twenty  miles  west  of  Spring- 
field, on  my  return  from  a  great  meeting  at  Petersburg  in  Menard 
County.  He  had  been  driven  to  the  station  in  a  buggy  and  left 
there  alone.  I  was  already  there.  The  train  that  we  intended  to 
take  for  Springfield  was  about  due.  After  vainly  waiting  for  half 
an  hour  for  its  arrival,  a  thunderstorm  compelled  us  to  take  refuge 
in  an  empty  freight  car  standing  on  a  side  track,  there  being  no 
buildings  of  any  sort  at  the  station.  We  squatted  on  the  floor  of 
the  car  and  fell  to  talking  on  all  sorts  of  subjects.  It  was  then  and 
there  that  he  told  me  that,  when  he  was  clerking  in  a  country  store, 
his  highest  political  ambition  was  to  be  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature.  "Since  then,  of  course,  "  he  said  laughingly,  "I  have 
grown  some,  but  my  friends  got  me  into  this  business  [meaning  the 
canvass].  I  did  not  consider  myself  qualified  for  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  it  took  me  a  long  time  to  persuade  myself  that  I  was. 
Now,  to  be  sure, "  he  continued  with  another  of  his  peculiar  laughs, 
"  I  am  convinced  that  I  am  good  enough  for  it ;  but  in  spite  of  it  all, 
I  am  saying  to  myself  every  day:  'It's  too  big  a  thing  for  you;  you 
will  never  get  it. '  Mary  [his  wife]  insists,  however,  that  I  am  going 
to  be  Senator  and  President  of  the  United  States,  too.  "  These  last 
words  he  followed  with  a  roar  of  laughter,  with  his  arms  around  his 
knees,  and  shaking  all  over  with  mirth  at  his  wife's  ambition. 
"  Just  think,  "  he  exclaimed,  "  of  such  a  Sucker  as  me  as  President ! " 

Memoirs  of  Henry  Villard,  Vol.  I,  page  96. 

[Note. — "Sucker"  is  a  name  applied  facetiously  to  a  resident  of 
Illinois,  as  "Hoosier"  is  given  to  a  native  of  Indiana. — W.  W.] 


284 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN' 


McClellan,  Vice-President  of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad, 
with  Douglas  and  against  Lincoln 

Another  incident  in  point  is  recalled  by  Major  Whitney: 
"Lincoln  and  I,"  says  he,  "were  at  the  Centralia  agricultural 
fair  the  day  after  the  debate  at  Jonesboro.  Night  came  on  and  we 
were  tired,  having  been  on  the  fair  grounds  all  day.  We  were  to  go 
north  on  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad.  The  train  was  due  at  mid- 
night and  the  depot  was  full  of  people.     I  managed  to  get  a  chair 

for  Lincoln  in  the  office  of  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  railroad,  but  small  poli- 
ticians would  intrude  so  that  he  could 
get  scarcely  a  moment's  sleep.  The 
train  came  and  was  filled  instantly.  I 
got  a  seat  near  the  door  for  Lincoln 
and  myself.  He  was  worn  out  and 
had  to  meet  Douglas  the  next  day  at 
Charleston.  An  empty  car,  called  a 
saloon  car,  was  hitched  on  to  the  rear  of 
the  train  and  locked  up.  I  asked  the 
conductor,  who  knew  Lincoln  and  my- 
self well, — we  were  both  attorneys  of 
the  road, — if  Lincoln  could  not  ride  in 
that  car;  that  he  was  exhausted  and 
needed  rest;  but  the  conductor  refused. 
I  afterwards  got  him  in  by  a  stratagem. 
"At  the  same  time,  George  B.  McClellan  in  person  [then  Vice^ 
President  of  the  road]  was  taking  Douglas  around  in  a  special  car 
and  special  train;  and  that  was  the  unjust  treatment  Lincoln  got 
from  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad !" 

Henry  C.  Whitney  as  quoted  in  Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  112. 


GEORGE  B.  McCLELLAN  IN  '58 


"You  Can't  Disprove  a  Proposition  by  Calling  Euclid  a  Liar" 

During  this  debate  [at  Charleston]  many  points  made  by 
Lincoln  were  suggestive  of  his  training :  his  figures  of  speech  were 
almost  always  drawn  from  his  personal  experience  in  the  backw  oods, 
on  the  farm,  or  from  his  more  recent  studies  in  American  history. 
To  one  who  has  followed  the  history  of  the  man,  an  examination 
cf  these  remarkable  traces  of  Lincoln's  mental  habits  and  earlier 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  285 

pursuits  is  exceedingly  interesting.  For  example,  after  he  had 
been  admitted  to  the  Bar,  noticing  the  frequent  use  of  the  word 
"demonstrate,"  and  feeling  that  a  mathematical  proposition,  as 
demonstrated,  was  a  good  illustration  of  the  power  of  truth,  he 
manfully  went  at  the  study  of  Euclid,  and,  to  use  his  own  expres- 
sion, "collared"  it  before  he  left  it. 

In  the  debates  with  Douglas  he  was  irritated  with  Douglas's 
constant  iteration  of  the  charge  that  he,  Lincoln,  had  endorsed 
certain  statements  of  Senator  Trumbull's  that  were,  as  Douglas  said, 
untrue.     Finally  Lincoln  said : 

"  Why,  sir,  there  is  not  a  single  statement  in  Trumbull's  speech 
that    depends    on    Trumbull's    veracity.     Why    does    not    Judge 

Douglas  answer  the  facts? If  you  have  studied  geometry 

you  remember  that  by  a  course  of  reasoning  Euclid  proves  that  all 
the  angles  in  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Euclid  has 
shown  how  to  work  it  out.  Now,  if  you  undertook  to  disprove  that 
proposition,  to  prove  that  it  was  erroneous,  could  you  do  it  by 
calling  Euclid  a  liar? 

"That  is  the  way  Judge  Douglas  answers  Trumbull.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  177. 

Douglas  Like  a  Cuttlefish 

(Part  of  Lincoln's  reply  to  Douglas  in  the  Debate  at  Charleston,  September  18,  1858.) 

"Judge  Douglas  is  playing  cuttlefish — a  small  species  of  fish 
that  has  no  mode  of  defending  itself  when  pursued  except  by  throw- 
ing out  a  black  fluid  which  makes  the  water  so  dark  the  enemy 
cannot  see  it;  and  thus  it  escapes.  " 

Life  and  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Douglas  Debate,  Vol.  II,  page  33. 

How  Lincoln  Shook  a  "Witness 

During  the  joint  debates  [at  Charleston]  Douglas  accused  Lin- 
coln of  having,  while  in  Congress,  voted  against  the  appropriation 
for  supplies  to  be  sent  the  United  States  soldiers  in  Mexico.  In 
reply  Lincoln  said: 

"  This  is  a  perversion  of  the  facts.  I  was  opposed  to  the  policy 
of  the  administration  in  declaring  war  against  Mexico;  but  when 
war  was  declared  I  never  failed  to  vote  for  the  support  of  any  prop- 
osition looking  to  the  comfort  of  our  poor  fellows  who  were  main- 


286  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

taining  the  dignity  of  our  flag  in  a  war  that  I  thought  unnecessary 
and  unjust." 

He  gradually  became  more  and  more  excited ;  his  voice  thrilled 
and  his  whole  frame  shook.  Sitting  on  the  stand  was  O.  B,  Ficklin, 
[a  Douglas  man]  who  had  served  in  Congress  with  Lincoln  in  1847, 

Lincoln  reached  back,  took  Ficklin  by  the  coat-collar,  back  of 
his  neck,  and  in  no  gentle  manner  lifted  him  from  his  seat,  as  if  he 
were  a  kitten,  and  roared : 

"Fellow-citizens,  here  is  Ficklin,  who  was  at  that  time  in  Con- 
gress with  me,  and  he  knows  it  is  a  lie.  " 

After  the  speaking  was  over,  Ficklin,  who  had  a  warm  personal 
friendship  with  him,  said : 

"Lincoln,  you  nearly  shook  all  the  Democracy  out  of  me 
to-day. " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  167. 

"  The  Judge  Was  on  the'Wrong  Side  of  the  Bar  " 

I  was  in  Macomb,  Illinois,  and  heard  that  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
were  to  have  a  joint  debate  in  Galesburg.  I  determined  to  hear 
that  discussion,  and,  with  much  difficulty,  for  I  was  penniless, 
managed  to  get  there.  Nearly  every  detail  of  that  memorable 
occasion  has  vanished  from  my  memory  except  the  introduction  to 
Lincoln's  speech  and  the  closing  part  of  that  of  Douglas.  I  never 
shall  forget  them. 

Judge  Douglas  closed  his  speech  with  a  very  bitter  attack  upon 
Lincoln's  career.  He  said  that  Lincoln  had  tried  everything  and 
had  always  been  a  failure.  He  had  tried  farming,  and  had  failed 
at  that, — had  tried  flatboating,  and  had  failed  at  that, — had  tried 
school-teaching,  and  had  failed  at  that, — had  sold  liquor  in  a  saloon, 
and  had  failed  at  that,  — had  tried  law,  and  had  failed  at  that, — and 
now  he  had  gone  into  politics,  and  was  doomed  to  make  the  worst 
failure  of  all.  "  That  is  the  man, "  said  Judge  Douglas,  "who  wants 
my  place  in  the  Senate.  You  don't  know  him  in  the  northern  part 
of  the  State  so  well  as  we  do  who  live  in  the  southern  part.  " 

That  part  of  Judge  Douglas's  speech  aroused  my  anger  to  white 
heat,  and  I  was  provoked  at  Lincoln  as  he  sat  there  and  laughed 
during  its  delivery.  He  seemed  to  be  greatly  amused  by  it.  At 
length  he  rose  to  reply.     He  came  forward  and  said  that  he  was  very 


LINCOLN  IN  1858 

While  the  great  debates  were  in  progress,  he  sat  for  this  ambrotype  at  Pittsfield,  Illinois,  October  I 

just  after  making  a  speech  in  the  public  square. 


(287^ 


288  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

much  obliged  to  Judge  Douglas  for  the  very  accurate  history  that  he 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  compile.  It  was  all  true, — every  word  of 
it.  "I  have, "  said  Lincoln,  "worked  on  a  farm;  I  have  split  rails; 
I  have  worked  on  a  flatboat;  I  have  tried  to  practise  law.  There 
is  just  one  thing  that  Judge  Douglas  forgot  to  relate.  He  says  that 
I  sold  liquor  over  a  counter.  He  forgot  to  tell  you  that,  while  I  was 
one  side  of  the  counter,  the  Judge  was  always  on  the  other  side." 

[Some  auditors  state  that  Lincoln  added:  "But  /  have  quit  the 
business !  "—W.  W J 

That  allusion  to  Judge  Douglas's  well-known  infirmity  set  the 
whole  audience  wild.  The  people  rent  the  heavens  with  their  shouts. 
It  was  quite  a  long  time  before  quiet  was  restored.  Then  Mr.  Lincoln 
delivered  one  of  those  masterly  orations  that  made  him  famous. 

Personal  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Thomas  H.  Tibbies.   Success  Magazine.Vol.  IX,  Febru- 
ary, 1906,  page  137. 

"Just  Before  the  Battle"  at  Quincy 

One  of  the  appointments  called  me  to  Quincy  (Illinois)  on 
the  day  when  one  of  the  great  debates  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
was  to  take  place  there,  and  on  that  occasion  I  was  to  meet  Abraham 
Lincoln  myself.  On  the  evening  before  the  day  of  the  debate,  I 
was  on  a  railroad  train  bound  for  Quincy.  The  car  in  which  I 
traveled  was  full  of  men  who  discussed  the  question  with  great 
animation.  A  member  of  the  Republican  State  Committee  accom- 
panied me  and  sat  by  my  side. 

All  at  once,  after  the  train  had  left  a  way  station,  I  observed  a 
great  commotion  among  my  fellow-passengers,  many  of  whom 
jumped  from  their  seats  and  passed  eagerly  around  a  tall  man  who 
had  just  entered  the  car.  They  addressed  him  in  the  most  familiar 
style:  "  Hello,  Abe!  How  are  you?"  and  so  on.  And  he  responded 
in  the  same  manner :  "  Good  evening,  Ben !  How  are  you,  Joe.?  Glad 
to  see  you,  Dick!"  and  there  was  much  laughter  at  some  things 
he  said,  which,  in  the  confusion  of  voices,  I  could  not  understand. 

"Why,"  exclaimed  my  companion,  the  committee-man, 
"there's  Lincoln  himself!"  He  pressed  through  the  crowd  and 
introduced  me  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  whom  I  then  saw  for  the  first 
time 

He  received  me  with  an  off-hand  cordiality,  like  an  old  ac- 
quaintance, having  been  informed  of  what  I  was  doing  in  the  cam- 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  289 

paign,  and  we  sat  down  together.  In  a  somewhat  high-pitched  but 
pleasant  voipe  he  began  to  talk  to  me,  telling  me  much  about  the 
points  he  and  Douglas  had  made  in  the  debates  at  different  places, 
and  about  those  he  intended  to  make  at  Quinc}^  on  the  morrow. 

When,  in  a  tone  of  perfect  ingenuousness,  he  asked  me — a 
young  beginner  in  politics — what  I  thought  about  this  and  that,  I 
should  have  felt  very  much  honored  by  his  confidence,  had  he  per- 
mitted me  to  regard  him  as  a  great  man.  But  he  talked  in  so  simple 
and  familiar  a  strain,  and  his  manner  and  homely  phrase  were  so 
absolutely  free  from  any  semblance  of  self-consciousness  or  preten- 
sion to  superiority,  that  I  soon  felt  as  if  I  had  known  him  all  my 
life,  and  we  had  long  been  close  friends 

When  we  arrived  at  Quincy,  we  found  a  large  number  of  friends 
waiting  for  him,  and  there  was  much  hand-shaking  and  many 
familiar  salutations  again.  Then  they  got  him  into  a  carriage, 
much  against  his  wish,  for  he  said  he  would  prefer  to  "foot  it  to 
Browning's,"  an  old  friend's  house,  where  he  was  to  have  supper 
and  a  quiet  night.  But  the  night  was  by  no  means  quiet  outside. 
The  blare  of  brass  bands  and  the  shouts  of  enthusiastic  and  not  in 
all  cases  quite  sober  Democrats  and  Republicans,  cheering  and 
hurrahing  for  their  respective  champions,  did  not  cease  until  the 
small  hours. 

The  next  morning  the  country  people  began  to  stream  into 
town  for  the  great  meeting,  some  singly,  on  foot  or  on  horseback, 
or  small  parties  of  men  and  women,  and  even  children,  in  buggies 
or  farm  wagons ;  while  others  were  marshaled  in  solemn  procession 
from  outlying  towns  or  districts  with  banners  and  drums,  many  of 
them  headed  by  maidens  in  white  with  tri-colored  scarfs,  who 
represented  the  Goddess  of  Liberty  and  the  different  States  of 
the  Union,  and  whose  beauty  was  duly  admired  by  everyone,  includ- 
ing themselves.  On  the  whole,  the  Democratic  displays  were  much 
more  elaborate  and  gorgeous  than  those  of  the  Republicans,  and  it 
was  said  that  Douglas  had  plenty  of  money  to  spend  for  such  things. 
He  himself  also  traveled  in  what  was  called  in  those  days  "great 
style,"  with  a  secretary  and  servants  and  a  numerous  escort  of 
somewhat  loud  companions,  moving  from  place  to  place  by  special 
train  with  cars  specially  decorated  for  the  occasion,  all  of  which 
contrasted  strongly  with  Lincoln's  extremely  modest  simplicity. 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Sck-urz,  Vol.  II,  page  89. 
10 


290  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

^i^^M^^^»^— ^^^^^W^^^^-^         '■        ■■■■I.I-    II  ■  IIIM    I     ■..■■.  ,       M,^^^^— M^— ^ 

The  Sixth  Joint  Debate,  at  Quincy 

The  great  debate  took  place  in  the  afternoon  on  the  open 
square,  where  a  large  pine-board  platform  had  been  built  for  the 
committee  of  arrangements,  the  speakers,  and  the  persons  they 
wished  to  have  with  them.  I  thus  was  favored  with  a  seat  on  that 
platform.  In  front  of  it  many  thousands  of  people  were  assembled, 
Republicans  and  Democrats  standing  peaceably  together,  only 
chaffing  one  another  now  and  then  in  a  good-tempered  way. 

As  the  champions  arrived  they  were  demonstratively  cheered 
by  their  adherents.  The  presiding  ofificer  agreed  upon  by  the  two 
parties  called  the  meeting  to  order  and  annoimced  the  program 
of  proceedings.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  open  with  an  allowance  of  an 
hour,  and  Senator  Douglas  was  to  follow  with  a  speech  of  one  hour 
and  a  half,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  speak  half  an  hour  in  conclu- 
sion. The  first  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  opening  address  was  devoted 
to  a  refutation  of  some  things  Douglas  had  said  at  previous  meetings. 
This  refutation  may,  indeed,  have  been  required  for  the  settlement 
of  disputed  points,  but  it  did  not  strike  me  as  anything  extraor- 
dinary, either  in  substance  or  in  form 

There  was,  however,  in  all  he  said,  a  tone  of  earnest  truthful- 
ness, of  elevated,  noble  sentiment,  and  of  kindly  sympathy,  which 
added  greatly  to  the  strength  of  his  argument,  and  became,  as  in 
the  course  of  his  speech  he  touched  upon  the  moral  side  of  the 
question  in  debate,  powerfully  impressive.  Even  when  attacking 
his  opponent  with  keen  satire  or  invective,  which,  coming  from  any 
other  speaker,  would  have  sounded  bitter  and  cruel,  there  was  still 
a  certain  something  in  his  utterance  making  his  hearers  feel  that 
those  thrusts  came  from  a  reluctant  heart,  and  that  he  would  much 
rather  have  treated  his  foe  as  a  friend. 

When  Lincoln  had  sat  down  amid  the  enthusiastic  plaudits  of 
his  adherents,  I  asked  myself  with  some  trepidation  in  my  heart, 
"What  will  Douglas  say  now?"      .... 

No  more  striking  contrast  could  have  been  imagined  than  that 
between  those  two  men  as  they  appeared  upon  the  platform.  By 
the  side  of  Lincoln's  tall,  lank,  and  ungainly  form,  Douglas  stood 
almost  like  a  dwarf,  very  short  of  stature,  but  square-shouldered 
and  broad-chested,  a  massive  head  upon  a  strong  neck,  the  very 
embodiment  of  force,  combativeness,  and  staying  power 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  291 

^.     ■     ■      ■       ■      I  ■—■  —■■I-  I  II  ■■■»■■     ■ IIIIMI     II  ■»— M^— ■ ■!  ■— M^— ^— ^— — ^M^^MM^^ 

On  the  stage  at  Quincy  he  looked  rather  natty  and  well  groomed  in 
excellently  fitting  broadcloth  and  shining  linen.  But  his  face 
seemed  a  little  puffy,  and  it  was  said  that  he  had  been  drinking  hard 
with  some  boon  companions  either  on  his  journey  or  after  his  arrival. 
The  deep  horizontal  wrinkle  between  his  keen  eyes  was  unusually 
dark  and  scowling.  While  he  was  listening  to  Lincoln's  speech,  a 
contemptuous  smile  now  and  then  flitted  across  his  lips,  and  when 
he  rose,  the  tough  parliamentary  gladiator,  he  tossed  his  mane 
with  an  air  of  overbearing  superiority,  of  threatening  defiance,  as 
if  to  say,   "  How  dare  any  one  stand  up  against  me? " 

As  I  looked  at  him,  I  detested  him  deeply;  but  my  detesta- 
tion was  not  free  from  an  anxious  dread  as  to  what  was  to  come. 
His  voice,  naturally  a  strong  baritone,  gave  forth  a  hoarse  and  rough, 
and  at  times  even  something  like  a  barking  sound.  His  tone  was, 
from  the  very  start,  angry,  dictatorial,  and  insolent  in  the  extreme. 
In  one  of  his  first  sentences  he  charged  Lincoln  with  "base  insinua- 
tions, "  and  then  he  went  on  in  that  style  with  a  wrathful  frown  on 
his  brow,  defiantly  shaking  his  head,  clenching  his  fists,  and  stamping 
his  feet.  No  language  seemed  too  offensive  for  him,  and  even 
inoffensive  things  he  would  sometimes  bring  out  in  a  manner  which 
sounded  as  if  intended  to  be  insulting;  and  thus  he  occasionally 
called  forth,  instead  of  applause  from  his  friends,  demonstrations  of 
remonstrance  from  the  opposition.  But  his  sentences  were  well 
put  together,  his  points  strongly  accentuated,  his  argumentation 
seemingly  clear  and  plausible,  his  sophisms  skilfully  woven  so  as  to 
throw  the  desired  flood  of  darkness  upon  the  subject  and  thus 
beguile  the  untutored  mind,  his  appeals  to  prejudice  tmprincipled 
and  reckless,  but  shrewdly  aimed,  and  his  invectives  vigorous  and 
exceedingly  trying  to  the  temper  of  the  assailed  party.  On  the 
whole,  his  friends  were  well  pleased  with  his  performance,  and 
rewarded  him  with  vociferous  cheers. 

But  then  came  Lincoln's  closing  speech  of  half  an  hour,  which 
seemed  completely  to  change  the  temper  of  the  atmosphere.  He 
replied  to  Douglas's  arguments  and  attacks  with  rapid  thrusts  so 
deft  and  piercing,  with  humorous  retort  so  quaint  and  pat,  with 
witty  illustrations  so  clinching,  and  he  did  it  all  so  good-naturedly, 
that  the  meeting,  again  and  again,  broke  out  into  bursts  of  delight 
by  which  even  many  of  his  opponents  were  carried  away,  while  the 
scowl  on  Douglas's  face  grew  darker  and  darker. 

Th«  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  page  02. 


292  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  A  Chance  to  Breathe  " 

I  succeeded  in  obtaining  an  interview  with  him  after  the  crowd 
had  departed.  He  sat  in  the  room  with  his  boots  off  to  relieve  his 
very  large  feet  from  the  pain  occasioned  by  continuous  standing, — 
or  to  put  it  in  his  own  words : 

"  I  like  to  give  my  feet  a  chance  to  breathe. " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  ").    Edited  by  Allen 
Thomdike  Rice,  page  441. 

The  Seventh  and  Last  Debate,  at  Alton 

At  their  last  joint  discussion  in  October,  at  Alton,  where 
Lovejoy,  twenty-one  years  before,  had  been  killed  because  of  his 
fidelity  to  freedom,  Lincoln,  in  closing  the  debate,  said : 

"Is  slavery  wrong?  That  is  the  real  issue.  That  is  the  issue 
that  will  continue  in  this  country  when  these  poor  tongues  of  Judge 
Douglas  and  myself  shall  be  silent.  It  is  the  eternal  struggle  between 
these  two  principles — right  and  wrong — throughout  the  world. 
They  are  two  principles  that  have  stood  face  to  face  from  the  be- 
ginning of  time;  and  will  ever  continue  to  struggle.  The  one  is  the 
common  right  of  humanity,  and  the  other  the  divine  right  of 
kings.  It  is  the  same  principle  in  whatever  shape  it  develops  itself. 
It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says : 

"  'You  work,  and  toil,  and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat  it.'  No 
matter  in  what  shape  it  comes,  whether  from  the  mouth  of  a  king 
who  seeks  to  bestride  the  people  of  his  own  nation,  and  live  by  the 
fruit  of  their  labor,  or  from  one  race  of  men,  as  an  apology  for 
enslaving  another  race,  it  is  the  same  tyrannical  principle 

"Has  anything  ever  threatened  the  existence  of  the  Union, 
save  and  except  this  very^  institution  of  slavery  ?  What  is  it  that 
we  hold  most  dear  among  us?  Our  own  liberty  and  prosperity. 
What  has  ever  threatened  our  liberty  and  prosperity  except  this 
institution  of  slavery?  If  this  is  true  how  do  you  propose  to  im- 
prove the  condition  of  things  by  enlarging  slavery?     By  spreading 

it  out  and  making  it  bigger? That  is  no  proper  way  of 

treating  what  you  regard  as  wrong. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  151. 

Senator  Trumbull  in  the  Campaign 

"Mention  should  be  made  of  the  services  of  Senator  Trumbull 
in  the  campaign.     Mr.  Trumbull  was  a  political  debater,  scarcely, 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  293 

if  at  all,  inferior  to  either  Lincoln  or  Douglas.  He  had  given 
Douglas  more  trouble  in  the  Senate,  during  the  three  years  he  had 
been  there,  than  anybody  else  in  that  body.  He  had  known 
Douglas  from  his  youth,  and  he  knew  all  the  joints  in  his  armor. 
He  possessed  a  courage  equal  to  any  occasion,  and  he  wielded  a 

blade  of  tempered  steel 

"  Douglas  scented  danger  when  Trumbull  took  the  field,  and 
with  his  usual  adroitness  sought  to  gain  sympathy  by  making  it 
appear  that  it  was  no  fair  game.  At  Havana  .  .  he  made  a 
rather  moving  remonstrance  against  this  '  playing  of  two  upon  one,' 
as  he  called  it.  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  his  speech  at  the  same  place, 
thought  it  worth  while  to  reply : 

'"I  understand,'  he  said,  'that  Judge  Douglas  yesterday 
referred  to  the  fact  that  both  Judge  Trumbull  and  myself  are  making 
speeches  throughout  the  State  to  beat  him  for  the  Senate,  and  that 
he  tried  to  create  sympathy  by  the  suggestion  that  this  was  playing 
two  upon  one  against  him.  .  .  .  Judge  Trumbull  is  a  Republican 
like  myself,  and  he  naturally  feels  a  lively  interest  in  the  success  of 
his  party.     Is  there  anything  wrong  about  that?' 

"  Douglas  had  as  many  helpers  as  Lincoln  had.  His  complaint 
implied  that  there  was  nobody  on  the  Democratic  side  who  was 
anywhere  near  being  a  match  for  Trumbull,  and  this  was  the  fact." 

Horace  White,  quoted  in  Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II, 
page  129. 

"It  Hurt  Too  Bad  to  Laugh,  and  He  Was  Too  Big  to  Cry" 

The  immediate  result  of  the  campaign  was  the  triumph  of 
Douglas,  who  had  certainly  made  not  only  a  very  able  and  brilliant 
but  a  splendidly  gallant  fight,  with  Republicans  assailing  him  in 
front  and  Administrationists  in  rear.  Lincoln  was  disappointed. 
His  feelings  had  been  so  deeply  engaged,  and  he  had  worked  so 
strenuously,  and  the  result  had  been  so  much  in  doubt,  that  defeat 
was  trying.  But  he  bore  it  with  his  wonted  resolute  equanimity. 
He  said  he  felt  "  like  the  boy  that  stumped  his  toe, — 'it  hurt  too  bad 
to  laugh,  and  he  was  too  big  to  cry.'  "  In  fact,  there  were  encourag- 
ing elements.  The  popular  vote  stood:  Republicans,  126,084; 
Douglas  Democrats,  121,940;  Lecompton  Democrats,  5,091.  But 
the  apportionment  of  districts  was  such  that  the  Legislature  con- 
tained a  majority  for  Douglas. 


294  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

So  the  prestige  of  victory  seemed  separated  from  its  fruits; 
for  the  nation,  attentively  watching  this  duel,  saw  that  the  new 
man  had  convinced  upwards  of  four  thousand  voters  more  than  had 
the  great  leader  of  the  Democracy.  Douglas  is  reported  to  have 
said  that,  during  his  sixteen  years  in  Congress,  he  had  found  no  man 
in  the  Senate  whom  he  would  not  rather  encounter  in  debate  than 
Lincoln. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Vol.  I,  page  149. 

No  "Bar'l  of  Money"  for  Lincoln  in  That  Campaign 

The  result  of  the  campaign  of  1858  wrought  more  disaster  to 
Lincoln's  finances  than  to  his  political  prospects.  The  loss  of  over 
six  months  from  his  business,  and  the  expenses  of  the  canvass,  made 
a  severe  strain  on  his  personal  income.  He  was  anxious  to  get  back 
to  the  law  once  more  and  earn  a  little  ready  money.  A  letter 
written  about  this  time  to  his  friend  Norman  B.  Judd,  Chairman  of 
the  Republican  State  Committee,  will  serve  to  throw  some  light  on 
the  situation  he  found  himself  in. 

"I  have  been  on  expenses  so  long  without  earning an3rthing, " 
he  says,  "that  I  am  absolutely  without  money  now  for  even  house- 
hold expenses.  Still,  if  you  can  put  in  $250  for  me  towards  dis- 
charging the  debt  of  the  committee,  I  will  allow  it  when  you  and  I 
settle  the  private  matter  between  us.  This,  with  what  I  have 
already  paid,  with  an  outstanding  note  of  mine,  will  exceed  my 
subscription  of  $500.  This,  too,  is  exclusive  of  my  ordinary  ex- 
penses during  the  campaign,  all  of  which  being  added  to  my  loss 
of  time  and  business,  bears  pretty  heavily  upon  one  no  better  off 
than  I  am.  But  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor,  it  is  not  for  me  to  be 
over-nice. " 

At  the  time  this  letter  was  written  his  property  consisted  of 
the  house  and  lot  on  w^hich  he  lived,  a  few  law  books  and  some 
household  furniture.  He  owned  a  small  tract  of  land  in  Iowa 
which  yielded  him  nothing,  and  the  annual  income  from  his  law 
practice  did  not  exceed  $3,000;  yet  the  party's  committee  in 
Chicago  were  dunning  their  late  standard-bearer,  who,  besides  the 
chagrin  of  his  defeat,  his  own  expenses,  and  the  sacrifice  of  his  time, 
was  asked  to  aid  in  meeting  the  general  expenses  of  the  campaign. 
At  this  day  one  is  a  little  surprised  that  some  of  the  generous  and 
wealthy  members  of  the  party  in  Chicago  or  elsewhere  did  not  come 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  295 

fonvard  and  volunteer  their  aid.  But  they  did  not,  and  whether 
Lincoln  felt  in  his  heart  the  injustice  of  this  treatment  or  not,  he 
went  straight  ahead  in  his  own  path  and  said  nothing  about  it. 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  iS7. 

"It  Gave  Me  a  Hearing  on  the  Great  and  Durable  Question" 

But  able  as  were  Lincoln's  arguments,  deep  as  was  the  impres- 
sion he  had  made,  he  was  not  elected  to  the  senatorship.  Douglas 
won  fairly  enough ;  though  it  is  well  to  note  that  if  the  Republicans 
did  not  elect  a  senator  they  gained  a  substantial  number  of  votes 
over  those  polled  in  1856. 

Lincoln  accepted  the  result  with  a  serenity  inexplicable  to  his 
supporters.  To  him  the  contest  was  but  one  battle  in  a  "durable" 
struggle.  Little  matter  who  won  now,  if  in  the  end  the  right 
triumphed.  From  the  first  he  looked  at  the  final  result — not  at  the 
senatorship, 

"  I  do  not  claim,  gentlemen,  to  be  unselfish,  "  he  said  at  Chicago 
in  July.  "  I  do  not  pretend  that  I  would  not  like  to  go  to  the  United 
States  Senate ;  I  make  no  such  hypocritical  pretense ;  but  I  do  say 
to  you  that  in  this  mighty  issue  it  is  nothing  to  you,  nothing  to  the 
mass  of  the  people  of  this  nation,  whether  or  not  Judge  Douglas  or 
myself  shall  ever  be  heard  of  after  this  night ;  it  may  be  a  trifle  to 
either  of  us,  but  in  connection  with  this  mighty  question,  upon 
which  hang  the  destinies  of  the  nation  perhaps,  it  is  absolutely 
nothing." 

The  intense  heat  and  fury  of  the  debates,  the  defeat  in  Novem- 
ber, did  not  alter  a  jot  this  high  view: 

"I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race, "  he  wrote  Dr.  A.  G.  Henry. 
"  It  gave  me  a  hearing  on  the  great  and  durable  question  of  the  age 
which  I  would  have  had  in  no  other  way ;  and  though  I  now  sink 
out  of  view  and  shall  be  forgotten,  I  believe  I  have  made  some 
marks  which  shall  tell  for  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am 
gone." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell  Vol.  I,  page  323. 

Parallel  Careers  of  Lincoln  and  Douglas 

The  careers  of  Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  closely  connected. 
In  their  professions  and  in  their  politics,  they  were  rivals,  and 
finally  became  rival  candidates  for  the  Presidency. 


LINCOLN  IN  i8s9 
Mrs.  Lincoln  pronounced  this  the  best  likeness  ever  taken  of  her  husband. 


(296) 


BATTLES  OF  THE  GIANTS  297 

1839 — Both  were  admitted  to  practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois  on  the  same  day. 

1 84 1 — Both  courted  the  same  lady. 

1846 — Both  represented  Illinois  in  Congress. 

1858 — They  were  opposing  candidates  for  United  States 
Senator. 

i860 — They  were  both  candidates  for  the  Presidency. 

Winnowings  for  Lincoln's  Birthday,  Agnes  Mawson,  Note  i6,  page  86. 

Called  to  Speak  in  Kansas  and  in  Ohio 

The  close  of  his  letter  (to  the  Hon.  N.  B.  Judd) : 

"You  are  feeling  badly,  'and  this,  too,  shall  pass  away,'  never 
fear, ' '  shows  that  so  far  from  feeling  chagrin  or  depression  over  his 
defeat,  Lincoln  had  a  word  of  cheer  for  his  friends. 

In  the  autumn  of  1859  he  visited  Kansas,  and  the  people  of  that 
young  commonwealth  received  him  as  one  who  had  so  eloquently 
pleaded  their  cause  should  be  received 

In  the  autumn  of  1859  Douglas  visited  Ohio  and  made  a  canvass 
for  the  Democratic  party.  On  his  appearance,  the  cry  arose  at 
once: 

"Where  is  Lincoln,  the  man  who  beat  him  in  Illinois?  Send 
for  him!" 

Lincoln  was  sent  for.  He  came  and  spoke  with  great  ability, 
at  Columbus  and  at  Cincinnati,  and  at  the  latter  place  addressed 
himself  especially  to  Kentuckians.  He  said,  among  other  things, 
that  they  ought  to  nominate  for  President  "my  distinguished 
friend,  Judge  Douglas.  "  "In  my  opinion  it  is, "  says  he,  " for  you 
to  take  him  or  be  beaten.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  155. 

Letter  Explaining  What  "Was  Gained  by  Making  the  Contest 
for  the  Senatorship 

"Springfield,  Ills.,  April  30,  1859. 
"Hon.  S.  p.  Chase. 

''Dear  Sir:  Reaching  home  yesterday  I  found  your  kind  note 
of  the  14th,  informing  me  that  you  have  given  Mr.  Whitney  the 
appointment  he  desired;  and  also  mentioning  the  present  encour- 
aging aspects  of  the  Republican  cause — and  our  Illinois  canvass  of 
last  year. 


298  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"I  thank  you  for  the  appointment ;  allow  me  also  to  thank  you 
as  being  one  of  the  very  few  distinguished  men  whose  sympathy 
we  in  Illinois  did  receive  last  year,  of  all  those  whose  sympathy  we 
thought  we  had  reason  to  expect. 

"Of  course  I  would  have  preferred  success ;  but,  failing  in  that,  I 
have  no  regrets  for  having  rejected  all  advice  to  the  contrary,  and 
resolutely  made  the  struggle.  Had  we  thrown  ourselves  into  the 
arms  of  Douglas,  as  re-electing  him  by  our  votes  would  have  done, 
the  Republican  cause  would  have  been  annihilated  in  Illinois,  and, 
as  I  think,  demoralized  and  prostrated  everywhere  for  years,  if  not 
forever.  As  it  is,  in  the  language  of  Benton,  'we  are  clean,'  and 
the  Republican  star  gradually  rises  higher  everjm^here. 

"Yours  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

From  the  original  in  the  Collection  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Widening  Renown 

Speaking  in  Ohio 

I  met  Lincoln  again  in  1859,  in  Columbus,  Ohio,  where  he  made 
a  speech,  which  w^as  only  a  continuation  of  the  Illinois  debates  of  the 

year  before It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  speech  that 

Lincoln  denied  being  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage,  and  took  pains  to 
affirm  his  support  of  the  law  of  Illinois  forbidding  the  intermarriage 
of  whites  and  negroes.  I  asked  him  if  such  a  denial  were  worth 
while,  to  which  he  replied : 

"  The  law  means  nothing.  I  shall  never  marry  a  negress,  but 
I  have  no  objection  to  any  one  else  doing  so.  If  a  white  man  wants 
to  marry  a  negro  woman,  let  him  if  the  negro  woman  can  stand  it." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  ").    Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  446. 

Another  Great  Murder  Trial 

•  Another  murder  case  in  which  Lincoln  defended  the  accused 
occurred  in  August,  1859.  The  victim  was  a  student  in  his  own  law 
office,  Greek  Crafton.  The  murderer,  Peachy  Harrison,  was  the 
grandson  of  Lincoln's  old  political  antagonist,  Peter  Cartwright. 
Both  young  men  were  connected  with  the  best  families  in  the 
county ;  the  brother  of  one  was  married  to  the  sister  of  the  other ; 
they  had  been  lifelong  friends.  In  an  altercation  upon  some 
political  question  hot  words  were  exchanged,  and  Harrison,  beside 
himself,  stabbed  Crafton,  who  three  days  later  died  from  the 
wound.  The  best  known  lawyers  of  the  State  were  engaged  for  the 
case.  Senator  John  M.  Palmer-  and  General  A.  McClernand  were  on 
the  side  of  the  prosecution.  Among  those  who  represented  the 
defendant  were  Lincoln,  Herndon,  Logan,  and  Senator  Shelby  M. 
Cullom. 

The  tragic  pathos  of  a  case  which  involved,  as  this  did,  the 
deepest  affections  of  almost  the  entire  community,  reached  its 
climax  in  the  appearance  in  court  of  the  venerable  Peter  Cartwright, 

(299) 


300  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

No  face  in  Illinois  was  better  known  than  his,  no  life  had  been  spent 
in  a  more  relentless  war  on  evil.  Eccentric  and  aggressive  as  he 
was,  he  was  honored  far  and  wide ;  and  when  he  arose  in  the  witness 
stand,  his  white  hair  crowned  with  this  cruel  sorrow,  the  most  indif- 
ferent spectator  felt  that  his  examination  would  be  unbearable. 
It  fell  to  Lincoln  to  question  Cartwright.  With  the  rarest  gentle- 
ness he  began  to  put  his  questions. 

"  How  long  have  you  known  the  prisoner?" 

Cartwright's  head  dropped  on  his  breast  for  a  moment ;  then 
straightening  himself,  he  passed  his  hand  across  his  eyes  and  an- 
swered in  a  deep,  quavering  voice : 

"  I  have  known  him  since  a  babe,  he  laughed  and  cried  on  my 
knee." 

The  examination  ended  by  Lincoln  drawing  from  the  witness 
the  story  of  how  Crafton  had  said  to  him,  just  before  death: 

"I  am  dying;  I  will  soon  part  with  all  I  love  on  earth,  and  1 
want  you  to  say  to  my  slayer  that  I  forgive  him.  I  want  to  leave 
this  earth  with  a  forgiveness  of  all  who  have  in  any  way  injured  me.  " 

This  examination  made  a  profound  impression  on  the  jury. 
Lincoln  closed  his  argument  by  picturing  the  scene  anew,  appealing 
to  the  jury  to  practise  the  same  forgiving  spirit  that  the  murdered 
man  had  shown  on  his  death-bed.  It  was  undoubtedly  to  his 
handling  of  the  grandfather's  evidence  that  Harrison's  acquittal 
was  due. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  273. 

The  "Bucking"  of  the  Chess-board 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Lincoln  was  engaged  in  a  game  of  chess 
with  Judge  Treat,  when  the  irrepressible  Tad  entered  the  office  to 
bring  his  father  home  to  supper.  As  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  obey  the 
summons,  Tad  attempted  one  or  two  offensive  movements  against 
the  chess-board,  but  was  warded  off  by  the  long  outstretched  arm 
of  his  father.  When  a  cessation  of  hostilities  occurred,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
intent  on  the  game,  fell  off  his  guard.  It  was  not  long,  however, 
before  the  table  suddenly  bucked,  sending  the  chess-board  and  pieces 
to  the  floor.  Judge  Treat  was  naturally  vexed,  and  strongly  urged 
the  infliction  of  summary  punishment  upon  the  miscreant.  But 
Mr.  Lincoln  only  said,  as  he  calmly  took  his  hat  to  go  home: 


WIDENING  RENOWN  301 

"Considering  the  position  of  your  pieces,  Judge,  at  the  time 
of  the  upheaval,  I  think  you  had  no  reason  to  complain. " 

The  Judge,  however,  has  always  said  that  he  never  could  forgive 
Lincoln  for  not  chastising  that  urchin. 

The  Every-Day  Life  of  Lincoln,  F.  F.  Browne,  page  206. 

John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry 

There  now  occurred  another  strange  event  which,  if  it  had  been 
specially  designed  as  a  climax  for  the  series  of  great  political  sensa- 
tions since  1852,  could  scarcely  have  been  more  dramatic.  This 
was  John  Brown's  invasion  of  Harper's  Ferry  in  order  to  create  a 
slave  insurrection 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1859,  John  Brown,  under  an  assumed  name, 
with  two  sons  and  another  follower,  appeared  near  Harper's  Ferry, 
and  soon  after  rented  the  Kennedy  farm,  in  Maryland,  five  miles 
from  town,  where  he  made  a  pretense  of  cattle-dealing  and  miniiag, 
but  in  reality  collected  secretly  his  rifles,  revolvers,  ammunition, 
pikes,  blankets,  tents,  and  miscellaneous  articles  for  a  campaign. 
His  rather  eccentric  actions,  and  the  irregular  coming  and  going  of 
occasional  strangers  at  his  cabin,  created  no  suspicion  in  the 
neighborhood.  .  .  .  He  appointed  the  attack  for  the  24th  of 
October;  but  for  some  unexplained  reason  he  precipitated  his 
movement  in  advance  of  that  date.  From  this  point  the  move- 
ments exhibit  no  foresight  or  completeness  of  preparation,  no 
diligent  pursuit  of  an  intelligent  plan,  nor  skill  to  devise  momentary 
expedients ;  only  a  blind  impulse  to  act. 

On  Sunday  evening,  October  16,  1859,  Brown  gave  his  final 
orders,  humanely  directing  his  men  to  take  no  life  where  they  could 
avoid  it.  Placing  a  few  pikes  and  other  implements  in  his  one- 
horse  wagon,  he  started  with  his  company  of  eighteen  followers  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  leaving  five  men  behind.  They  cut 
the  telegraph  wires  on  the  way,  and  reached  Harper's  Ferry  about 
II  o'clock.  He  himself  broke  open  the  armory  gates,  took  the 
watchmen  prisoners,  and  made  that  place  his  headquarters.  Sepa- 
rating his  men  into  small  detachments,  he  took  possession  of,  and 
attempted  to  hold,  the  two  bridges,  the  arsenal  and  the  rifle-factory. 
Next  he  sent  six  of  his  men  five  miles  into  the  country  to  bring  in 
several  prominent  slave-owners  and  their  slaves.    This  was  accom- 


WIDENING  RENOWN  303 

plished  before  daylight,  and  all  were  brought  as  prisoners  to  Brown 
at  the  armory 

Meanwhile,  about  midnight  of  Sunday,  they  detained  the 
railroad  train  three  hours,  but  jfinally  allowed  it  to  proceed.  A 
negro  porter  was  shot  on  the  bridge.  The  town  began  to  be  alarmed. 
Citizens  were  captured  at  various  points,  and  brought  to  swell  the 
number  of  prisoners  at  the  armory,  counting  forty  or  fifty  by  morn- 
ing. Still,  not  until  daylight,  and  even  until  the  usual  hour  of 
rising  on  Monday  morning,  did  the  town  comprehend  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  trouble. 

What,  now,  did  Brown  intend  to  do? Both  he  and 

his  men  gave  everybody  to  understand  without  reserve  that  they 
had  come  not  to  kill  whites,  but  only  to  liberate  slaves.  Soon,  also, 
he  placed  pikes  in  the  hands  of  his  black  prisoners.  But  that  cere- 
mony did  not  make  soldiers  of  them,  as  his  favorite  maxim  taught. 
They  held  them  in  their  hands  with  listless  indifference,  remaining 
themselves,  as  before,  an  incumbrance  instead  of  a  reenforcement. 
He  gave  his  white  prisoners  notice  that  he  would  hold  them  as 
hostages,  and  informed  one  or  t^\'o  that,  after  daylight,  he  would 
exchange  them  for  slaves. 

Before  the  general  fighting  began,  he  endeavored  to  effect  an 
armistice,  or  compromise  with  the  citizens,  to  stop  bloodshed,  on 
condition  that  he  be  permitted  to  hold  the  armory  and  retain  the 
liberated  negroes 

As  the  day  dawned  upon  the  town  and  the  truth  upon  the 
citizens,  his  situation  in  a  military  point  of  view  was  already  hope- 
less— eighteen  m^en  against  perhaps  1000  adults,  and  these  eighteen 
scattered  in  four  or  five  squads,  without  means  of  mutual  support, 
communication,  or  even  contingent  orders!  ....  By  Monday 
noon  the  squad  in  the  rifle-works,  distant  one  mile  from  the  armory, 
had  been  driven  out,  killed,  and  captured.  The  other  squads,  not  so 
far  from  their  leader,  joined  him  at  the  armory,  minus  their  losses. 
Already  he  was  driven  to  take  refuge  with  his  diminished  force  in 
the  engine-house,  a  low,  strong,  brick  building  in  the  armory  yard, 
where  they  barricaded  doors  and  improvised  loop-holes,  and  into 
which  they  took  with  them  ten  selected  prisoners  as  hostages.  But 
the  expedient  was  one  of  desperation.  By  this  movement  Brown 
literally  shut  himself  up  in  his  own  prison,  from  which  escape  was 
impossible. 


304 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


A  desultory  fire  was  kept  up  through  doors  and  loop-holes. 
But  now  the  whole  country  had  become  thoroughly  aroused,  and 
sundry  military  companies  from  neighboring  towns  and  counties 

poured  into  Harper's  Ferry President  Buchanan  also 

took  prompt  measures;  and  on  Monday  night  a  detachment  of 

eighty  marines  from 
the  Washington 
Navy  Yard  under 
command  of  Brevet 
Colonel  Robert  E. 
Lee,  of  the  United 
States  Army,  ... 
reached  the  scene 
of  action,  and  were 
stationed  in  the 
armory  yard  so  as  to 
cut  off  the  insurgents 
from  all  retreat. 

At  daylight  on 
Tuesday  morning 
Brown  was  sum- 
moned to  surrender 
at  discretion,  but  he 
refused.  The  in- 
stant the  officer  left 
the  engine-house  a 
storming  party  of 
marines  battered  in 
the  doors  ;  in  five 
minutes  the  conflict 
was  over.  One 
marine  was  shot 
dead  in  the  assault ; 
Brown  fell  under  severe  sword  and  bayonet  wounds,  two  of  his 
sons   lay   dead   or   dying,   and   four   or   five   of    his    men    were 

made   prisoners,    only  two   remaining   unhurt After   an 

experimental  campaign  of  thirty-six  hours  ten  men  of  Brown's  total 
force  of  twenty-two  were  killed ;  five  escaped,  and  seven  were  cap- 


LINCOLN  IN  '59 


WIDENING  RENOWN  305 


tured,  tried  and  hanged.  Of  the  towns-people,  five  had  been  killed 
and  eight  wounded. 

While  John  Brown's  ability  for  military  leadership  was  too 
insignificant  even  for  comment,  his  moral  and  personal  courage 
compelled  the  admiration  of  his  enemies.  Arraigned  before  a 
Virginia  court,  the  authorities  hurried  through  his  trial  for  treason, 
conspiracy,  and  murder,  with  an  unseemly  precipitancy,  almost 
calculated  to  make  him  seem  the  accuser  and  the  Commonwealth 
the  trembling  culprit.  He  acknowledged  his  acts  with  frankness, 
defended  his  purpose  with  a  sincerity  that  betokened  honest  con- 
viction, bore  his  wounds  and  met  his  fate  with  a  manly  fortitude.    .    . 

He  was  convicted,  sentenced  and  hanged  on  the  2nd  of  De- 
cember. Congress  met  a  few  days  afterward,  and  the  Senate 
appointed  an  investigating  committee  to  inquire  into  the  seizure 
of  the  United  States  armory  and  arsenal.  .  .  .  Jefferson  Davis, 
of  Mississippi;  Mason,  of  Virginia;  and  Fitch,  of  Indiana,  Demo- 
cratic members  of  the  Senate  investigating  committee,  sought  dili- 
gently but  unsuccessfully  to  find  grounds  to  hold  the  Republican 

party    at    large    responsible    for    Brown's    raid Senator 

Douglas,  .  .  apparently  with  the  object  of  still  further  setting 
himself  right  with  the  South,  and  atoning  for  his  Freeport  heresy, 
made  a  long  speech  in  advocacy  of  a  law  to  punish  conspiracies  in 
one  State  or  Territory  against  the  government,  peopls  or  property 
of  another;  once  more  quoting  Lincoln's  Springfield  speech,  and 
Seward's  Rochester  speech,  as  containing  revolutionary  doctrines. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  II,  pages  190-210. 

["John  Brown's  body"  was  taken  by  friends  and  buried  at 
North  Elba,  New  York.— W.  W.] 

Orator  of  the  Day  at  the  Wisconsin  State  Fair 

Mr.  Lincoln's  triumphs  of  physical  strength  led  him  into  the 
practice  of  almost  unconsciously  comparing  himself,  in  this  respect, 
with  other  men.  The  habit  is  well  illustrated  in  an  incident  related 
by  Governor  John  Wesley  Hoyt,  for  many  years  secretary  and  man- 
ager of  the  Wisconsin  State  Agricultural  Society.  He  escorted 
Lincoln  in  the  autumn  of  1859,  through  the  fair  of  the  association,  at 
which  the  Hlinois  visitor  had  made  the  address. 

He  spent  some  time  in  one  of  the  tents,  watching  the  perform- 
so 


3o6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


ance  of  a  "  strong  man,  "  who  tossed  about  huge  iron  balls,  catching 
and  rolling  them  on  his  arms  and  back  with  remarkable  brawn  and 
agility.  The  exhibition  appeared  to  interest  the  orator  of  the  day  so 
intensely  that,  at  its  conclusion,  the  manager  introduced  the  athlete 
to  him. 

Mr.  Lincoln  stood  looking  down  upon  the  man,  who  was  very 
short,  as  if  wondering  that  one  so  much  smaller  than  he  could  be  so 
much  stronger.     Then  he  said  abruptly,  in  his  quaint  fashion: 

"  Why,  I  could  lick  salt  off  the  top  of  your  hat!" 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  27. 

How  He  Came  to  Lecture  at  Cooper  Institute 

During  the  winter  of  1859  several  young  men  in  New  York  .  . 
wanted  a  man  who  could  draw  a  crowd  and  make  a  lecture  a  success, 
they  said,  and  asked  me  if  I  could  name  such  a  man.  ...  I 
gave  it  as  my  decided  opinion  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  be  the  best 
man  to  fill  Cooper  Institute.  The  expense  would  be  large,  but  the 
young  men  decided  to  take  the  risk  of  inviting  him.  The  compensa- 
tion offered  was  $200,  which  included  all  his  expenses.  The  pro- 
posal made  to  him  was  promptly  accepted,  and  on  Mr.  Lincoln's 
arrival  in  New  York  he  came  directly  to  my  office 

The  introductory  conversation  was  quickly  over,  and  he  im- 
mediately made  himself  at  home,  completely  covering  the  sofa, 
which  w^as  quite  too  small  and  short  for  his  extended  figure.  I  soon 
saw  he  was  a  talker.  He  bubbled  over  with  stories  and  jokes,  and 
speedily  convinced  me  that  I  had  made  no  mistake  in  recommending 
him  as  a  lecturer.  After  an  hour's  talk  I  asked  him  where  he  was 
stopping  in  the  city,  and  he  said  he  had  a  quiet  room  in  the  Metro- 
politan Hotel  where  he  could  have  a  chance  to  think.  I  invited  him 
to  be  my  guest  in  Brooklyn;  but  he  declined,  saying  he  was  afraid 
he  had  made  a  mistake  in  accepting  the  call  to  New  York,  and  feared 
his  lecture  would  not  prove  a  success.  He  said  he  would  have  to 
give  his  whole  time  to  it,  otherwise  he  was  sure  he  would  make  a 
failure,  in  which  case  he  would  be  very  sorry  for  the  young  men  who 
had  kindly  invited  him. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  Tribuies  from  His  Associates,  Edited  by  William  Hayes  Ward.    ReooUections, 
Henry  C.  Bowen,  page  26. 

The  Stranger  "Who  Talked  in  the  Five  Points  Mission 

When  in  New  York  he  visited  one  of  the  charitable  institutions 
of  the  city,  known  as  the  Five  Points  Home  of  Industry,  and  the 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincohi,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

THE   COOPER  INSTITUTE   PORTRAIT 

While  Lincoln  was  in  New  York  to  deliver  his  great  speech  in  Cooper  Institute,  February  27,  i860,  he 
was  taken  by  the  committee  to  Brady's  gallery  and  this  excellent  ^lortrait  is  the  result. 


WIDENING  RENOWN  307 

superintendent  of  the  Sabbath-school  there  wrote  this  account  of 
the  event : 

"One  Sunday  morning  I  saw  a  tall  remarkable-looking  man 
enter  the  room  and  take  a  seat  among  us.  He  listened  with  fixed 
attention  to  our  exercises,  and  his  countenance  expressed  such 
genuine  interest  that  I  approached  him  and  suggested  that  he  might 
be  willing  to  say  something  to  the  children.  He  accepted  the  invita- 
tion with  evident  pleasure,  and  coming  forward  began  a  simple 
address  which  at  once  fascinated  every  little  hearer,  and  hushed  the 
room  into  silence.  His  language  was  strikingly  beautiful  and  his 
tones  musical  with  intense  feeling.  The  little  faces  would  droop 
into  sad  conviction  as  he  uttered  sentences  of  warning,  and  would 
brighten  into  sunshine  as  he  spoke  cheerful  words  of  promise.  Once 
or  twice  he  attempted  to  close  his  remarks,  but  the  imperative  shout 
of  'Go  on !  Oh,  do  go  on !'  would  compel  him  to  resume. 

"  As  I  looked  upon  the  gaunt  and  sinewy  frame  of  the  stranger 
and  marked  his  powerful  head  and  determined  features  now  touched 
into  softness  by  the  impressions  of  the  moment,  I  felt  an  irrepressible 
curiosity  to  learn  something  more  about  him,  and  while  he  was 
quietly  leaving  the  room  I  begged  to  know  his  name.  He  cour- 
teously replied : 

"  'I'm  Abraham  Lincoln  from  Illinois.'  " 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Ernest  Foster,  page  76. 

The  Cooper  Institute  Speech 

We  went  to  Cooper  Institute  and  there  was  a  crowd,  as  there 
was  at  Beecher's  church.  We  finally  got  on  the  stairway  and  far 
in  the  rear  of  the  great  crowd,  but  my  brother  stood  on  the  floor, 
and  I  sat  on  the  ledge  of  the  window-sill,  with  my  feet  on  his  shoul- 
ders while  I  told  him  down  there  what  was  going  on  over  yonder. 
The  first  man  that  came  on  the  platform  and  presided  at  that  meet- 
ing was  William  Cullen   Bryant,  our  dear  old  neighbor 

He  took  his  seat  on  the  stage,  the  right  of  which  was  left  vacant  for 
some  one  yet  to  come.  Next  came  a  very  heavy  man,  but  imme- 
diately following  him  a  tall,  lean  man. 

Mr.  Bryant  arose  and  went  toward  him,  bowing  and  smiling. 
He  was  an  awkward  specimen  of  a  man  and  all  about  me  people 
were  asking,   "Who  is  that?" 

But  no  one  seemed  to  know.     I  asked  a  gentleman  who  that 


3o8  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

man  was,  but  he  said  he  didn't  know.  He  was  an  awkward 
specimen  indeed;  one  of  the  legs  of  his  trousers  was  up  about 
two  inches  above  his  shoe ;  his  hair  was  disheveled  and  stuck  out 
like  rooster's  feathers ;  his  coat  was  altogether  too  large  for  him  in 
the  back,  his  arms  much  longer  than  his  sleeves,  and  with  his  legs 
twisted  aroiind  the  rungs  of  the  chair — he  was  the  picture  of 
embarrassment. 

When  Mr.  Bryant  arose  to  introduce  the  speaker  of  that  eve- 
ning, he  was  known  seemingly  to  few  in  that  great  hall.  Mr.  Bryant 
said:  .  .  • .  .  "Gentlemen  of  New  York,  it  is  great  honor  that  is 
conferred  upon  me  to-night,  for  I  can  introduce  to  you  the  next 
President  of  the  United  States,  Abraham  Lincoln.  "  Then  through 
that  audience  flew  the  query  as  to  who  Abraham  Lincoln  was. 
There  was  but  weak  applause. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  in  his  hand  a  manuscript.  He  had  written  it 
with  great  care  and  exactness,  and  the  speech  which  you  read  in  his 
biography  is  the  one  that  he  wrote,  not  the  one  that  he  delivered 
as  I  recall  it,  and  it  is  fortunate  for  the  country  that  they  did  print 

the  one  that  he  wrote He  had  read  three  pages  and  had 

gone  on  to  the  fourth  when  he  lost  his  place  and  then  he  began  to 
tremble  and  stammer.  He  then  turned  it  over  two  or  three 
times,  threw  the  manuscript  upon  the  table,  and,  as  they  say  in 
the  West,  "let  himself  go." 

Now  the  stammering  man  who  had  created  only  silent  derision 
up  to  that  point,  suddenly  flashed  out  into  an  angel  of  oratory  and 
the  awkward  arms  and  disheveled  hair  were  lost  sight  of  entirely  in 
the  wonderful  beauty  and  lofty  inspiration  of  that  magnificent 
address.  The  great  audience  immediately  began  to  follow  his 
thought,  and  when  he  uttered  that  quotation  from  (Frederick) 
Douglass,  "  It  is  written  in  the  sky  of  America  that  the  slaves  shall 
some  day  be  free, "  he  had  settled  the  question  that  he  was  to  be 
the  next  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  applause  was  so  great  that  the  building  trembled  and  I 
felt  the  windows  shake  behind  me. 

Personal  Glimpses  of  Celebrated  Men  and  Women,  Russell  H.  Conwell,  page  354. 

What  the  Cooper  Union  Speech  Was  about 

Unquestionably  the  most  effective  piece  of  work  he  did  that 
winter  was  the  address  at  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  on  February 
27th,  (i860) 


WIDENING  RENOWN  309 


Mr.  Lincoln's  audience  was  a  notable  one  even  for  New  York. 
It  included  William  Cullen  Bryant,  who  introduced  him,  Horace 
Greeley,  David  Dudley  Field,  and  many  more  well  known  men  of 
the  day 

The  Cooper  Union  speech  was  founded  on  a  sentence  from  one 
of  Douglas's  Ohio  speeches: 

"  Our  fathers  when  they  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live  understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better,  than 
we  do  now. " 

Douglas  claimed  that  the  "  fathers"  held  that  the  Constitution 
forbade  the  Federal  government  controlling  slavery  in  the  Terri- 
tories. Lincoln,  with  infinite  care,  had  investigated  the  opinions 
and  votes  of  each  of  the  "  fathers" — whom  he  took  to  be  the  thirty- 
nine  men  who  signed  the  Constitution — and  showed  conclusively 
that  a  majority  of  them  "certainly  understood  that  no  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority  nor  any  part  of  the  Con- 
stitution forbade  the  Federal  government  to  control  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories. " 

Not  only  did  he  show  this  of  the  thirty -nine  framers  of  the 
original  Constitution,  but  he  defied  anybody  to  show  that  one  of  the 
seventy-six  members  of  the  Congress  which  framed  the  Constitution 
ever  held  any  such  view. 

It  is  doubtful  if  there  were  any  persons  present,  even  his  best 
friends,  who  expected  that  Lincoln  would  do  more  than  interest  his 
hearers  by  his  sound  arguments.  Many  have  confessed  since  that 
they  feared  his  queer  manner  and  quaint  speeches  would  amuse 
people  so  much  that  they  would  fail  to  catch  the  weight  of  his  logic. 
But  to  the  surprise  of  everybody  Lincoln  impressed  his  audience 
from  the  start  by  his  dignity  and  his  seriousness. 

"  His  manner  was,  to  a  New  York  audience,  a  very  strange  one, 
but  it  was  captivating, "  wrote  an  auditor.  "  He  held  the  vast 
meeting  spellbound,  and  as  one  by  one  his  oddly  expressed  but 
trenchant  and  convincing  arguments  confirmed  the  soundness  of  his 
political  conclusions,  the  house  broke  out  in  wild  and  prolonged 
enthusiasm.  I  think  I  never  saw  an  audience  more  thoroughly 
carried  away  by  an  orator.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M,  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  326. 


3IO  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Lincoln  Defends  the  Republicans  from  the  Charge  of  Complicity 

with  John  Brown 

"You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among  your  slaves. 
We  deny  it;  and  what  is  your  proof?  Harper's  Ferry!  John 
Brown !  !  John  Brown  was  no  Republican ;  and  you  have  failed  to 
implicate  a  single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enterprise.    .    .    . 

"John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a  slave  insur- 
rection. It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt  among 
slaves,  in  which  the  slaves  refused  to  participate.  In  fact,  it  was 
so  absurd  that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly 
enough  it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its  philosophy,  corres- 
ponds with  the  many  attempts,  related  in  history,  at  the  assassina- 
tion of  kings  and  emperors.  An  enthusiast  broods  over  the  op- 
pression of  a  people  till  he  fancies  himself  commissioned  by  Heaven 
to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the  attempt  which  ends  in  little  else 
than  his  own  execution.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon,  and 
John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry,  were,  in  their  philosophy, 
precisely  the  same.  The  eagerness  to  cast  the  blame  on  old  England 
in  the  one  case,  and  on  New  England  in  the  other,  does  not  disprove 
the  sameness  of  the  two  things. " 

Lincoln's  Cooper  Institute  Address,  February  27,  i860. 

"He's  the  Greatest  Man  since  St.  Paul !" 

This  is  the  testimony  of  one  who  was  present  on  that  historic 
occasion. 

"  When  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  I  w^as  greatly  disappointed.  He 
was  tall,  tall — oh,  how  tall ! — and  so  angular  and  awkward  that  I 
had,  for  an  instant,  a  feeling  of  pity  for  so  ungainly  a  man.  His 
clothes  were  black  and  ill-fitting,  badly  wrinkled — as  if  they  had 
been  jammed  carelessly  into  a  small  trunk.  His  bushy  head,  with 
stiff  black  hair  thrown  back,  was  balanced  on  a  long  and  lean  head- 
stalk,  and  when  he  raised  his  hands  in  an  opening  gesture,  I  noticed 
that  they  were  very  large.  He  began  in  a  low  tone  of  voice — as  if 
he  were  used  to  speaking  out-doors,  and  was  afraid  of  speaking  too 
loud.  He  said,  'Mr.  Cheerman,'  instead  of  'Mr.  Chairman,'  and 
employed  many  other  words  with  an  old-fashioned  pronunciation. 
I  said  to  myself : 

"  'Old  fellow,  you  won't  do ;  it's  all  very  well  for  the  wild  West, 
but  this  will  never  go  down  in  New  York.' 


WIDENING  RENOWN  '  311 

"  But  pretty  soon  he  began  to  get  into  his  subject ;  he  straight- 
ened up,  made  regular  and  graceful  gestures ;  his  face  lighted  as  with 
an  inward  fire;  the  whole  man  was  transfigured.  I  forgot  his 
clothes,  his  personal  appearance,  his  individual  peculiarities.  Pres- 
ently, forgetting  myself,  I  was  on  my  feet  with  the  rest,  yelling  like 
a  wild  Indian,  cheering  this  wonderful  man.  In  the  close  parts  of 
his  argument,  you  could  hear  the  gentle  sizzling  of  the  gas-burners. 
When  he  reached  a  climax  the  thunders  of  applause  were  terrific. 
It  was  a  great  speech. 

"  When  I  came  out  of  the  hall,  my  face  glowing  with  excitement 
and  my  frame  all  a-quiver,  a  friend  with  his  eyes  aglow,  asked  me 
what  I  thought  of  Abe  Lincoln  the  rail-splitter.     I  said : 

"  'He's  the  greatest  man  since  St.  Paul.'     And  I  think  so  vet. " 

\braham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  i86. 

Speaking  in  New  England 

The  day  following  the  Cooper  Institute  meeting,  the  leading 
New  York  dailies  published  the  speech  in  full,  and  made  editorial 
mention  of  it  and  of  the  speaker  as  well.  It  was  plain  now  that 
Lincoln  had  captured  the  metropolis.  From  New  York  he  traveled 
to  New  England  to  visit  his  son,  Robert,  who  was  attending  college 
(Phillips  Academy  at  Exeter,  N.  H.).  In  answer  to  the  many  calls 
and  invitations  which  showered  on  him,  he  spoke  at  various  places 
in  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island  and  New  Hampshire.  In  all  these 
places  he  not  only  left  deep  impressions  of  his  ability,  but  he  con- 
vinced New  England  of  his  intense  earnestness  in  the  great  cause. 
The  newspapers  treated  him  with  no  little  consideration.  One 
paper  [the  Manchester,  N.  H.,  Mirror]  characterized  his  speech  as 
one  of  "  great  fairness,  "  delivered  with  "  great  apparent  candor  and 
wonderful  interest.  For  the  first  half  hour  his  opponents  would 
agree  with  every  word  he  uttered;  and  from  that  point  he  would 
lead  them  off  little  by  little,  until  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  got  them  all 
into  the  fold.  He  is  far  from  prepossessing  in  personal  appearance, 
and  his  voice  is  disagreeable;  and  yet  he  wins  your  attention  from 
the  start.  He  indulges  in  no  flowers  of  rhetoric,  no  eloquent  pas- 
sages  He  displays  more  shrewdness,  more  knowledge 

of  the  masses  of  mankind  than  any  public  speaker  we  have  heard 
since  Long  Jim  Wilson  left  for  California. " 

Htrndon's  Lincoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  165. 


312  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"What's  the  Use  of  Talking  of  Me  for  the  Presidency?" 

The  possibility  of  Abraham  Lincoln  becoming  the  Presidential 
candidate  of  the  Republican  party  in  i860  was  probably  first  dis- 
cussed by  a  few  of  his  friends  in  1856.  The  dramatic  speech  which 
in  May  of  that  year  gave  him  the  leadership  of  his  party  in  Illinois, 
and  the  unexpected  and  flattering  attention  he  received  a  few  weeks 
later  at  the  Republican  National  Convention  suggested  the  idea.  .  . 
The  impression  Lincoln  made  two  years  later  in  the  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  debates  kindled  a  different  feeling.  It  convinced  a  number, 
of  astute  Illinois  politicians  that  judicious  effort  would  make 
Lincoln  strong  enough  to  justify  the  presentation  of  his  name  as  a 
candidate  in  1 860  on  the  ground  of  pure  availability. 

One  of  the  first  men  to  conceive  this  idea  was  Jesse  W.  Fell,  a 
local  politician  of  Bloomington,  Illinois.  During  the  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  debates  Fell  was  traveling  in  the  Middle  and  Eastern 
States.  .  One  evening,  soon  after  returning  home,  he  met  Lincoln 
in  Bloomington,  "where  the  latter  was  attending  court,  and  drew 
him  into  a  deserted  law-office  for  a  confidential  talk. 

"I  have  been  East,  Lincoln, "  said  he,  "as  far  as  Boston,  and 
up  into  New  Hampshire,  traveling  in  all  the  New  England  States, 
save  Maine;  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Michi';an  and  Indiana;  and  ever^^'here  I  hear  you  talked  about. 
Very  frequently  I  have  been  asked,  'Who  is  this  man  Lincoln  of 
your  State,  now  canvassing  in  opposition  to  Senator  Douglas?' 
Being,  as  you  know,  an  ardent  Republican  and  your  friend,  I  usually 
told  them  we  had  in  Illinois  tivo  giants  instead  of  one ;  that  Douglas 
was  the  little  one,  as  they  all  knew,  but  that  you  were  the  hig  one, 
which  they  didn't  all  know, 

"  But,  seriously,  Lincoln,  Judge  Douglas  being  widely  known, 
you  are  getting  a  national  reputation  through  him,  and  the  truth  is. I 
have  a  decided  impression  that  if  your  popular  history  and  efforts 
on  the  slavery  question  can  be  sufficiently  brought  before  the  people, 
you  can  be  made  a  formidable,  if  not  a  successful,  candidate  for  the 
Presidency. " 

"What's  the  use  of  talking  of  me  for  the  Presidency,"  was 
Lincoln's  reply,  "whilst  we  have  such  men  as  Seward,  Chase,  and 
others,  who  are  so  much  better  known  to  the  people  and  whose 
names  are  so  intimately  associated  with  the  principles  of  the  Repub- 


WIDENING  RENOWN  313 

lican  party?  Everybody  knows  them;  nobody  scarcely  outside  of 
Illinois  knows  me.  Besides,  is  it  not,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  due  to 
such  men,  who  have  carried  this  movement  forward  to  its  present 
status,  in  spite  of  fearful  opposition,  personal  abuse,  and  hard 
names?     I  really  think  so.  " 

Fell  continued  his  persuasions,  and  finally  requested  Lincoln 
to  furnish  him  with  a  sketch  of  his  life  which  could  be  put  out  in 
the  East.  The  suggestion  grated  on  Lincoln's  sensibilities.  He 
had  no  chance.     Why  force  himself? 

"  Fell,  "  he  said,  rising  and  wrapping  his  old  gray  shawl  around 
his  tall  figure,  *'  I  admit  that  I  am  ambitious  and  would  like  to  be 
President.  I  am  not  insensible  of  the  compliment  you  pay  me  and 
-the  interest  you  manifest  in  the  matter,  but  there  is  no  such  good 
luck  in  store  for  me  as  the  Presidency  of  these  United  States.  Besides, 
there  is  nothing  in  my  early  history  that  would  interest  you  or  any- 
body else;  and,  as  Judge  Davis  says,  7/  won't  pay'  Good  night." 

And  he  disappeared  into  the  darkness. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  334. 

"I  Do  Not  Think  I  Am  Fit  for  the  Presidency" 

The  opening  of  the  year  i860  found  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  freely 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Republican  nomination  for  the 
Presidency.  To  be  classed  with  Seward,  Chase,  McLean  and  other 
celebrities  was  enough  to  stimulate  any  Illinois  lawyer's  pride ;  but 
in  Lincoln's  case,  if  it  had  any  such  effect  he  was  most  artful  in 
concealing  it.  Now  and  then,  some  ardent  friend,  an  editor,  for 
example,  would  run  his  name  up  to  the  masthead,  but  in  all  cases 
he  discouraged  the  attempt. 

"  In  regard  to  the  matter  you  spoke  of, "  he  answered  one  man 
who  proposed  his  name,  "  I  beg  you  will  not  give  it  further  mention. 
Seriously,  I  do  not  think  I  am  fit  for  the  Presidency. " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  128, 

How  the  Rails  "Were  Brought  in 

I  may  as  well  mention  here  the  first  public  occasion  on  which 
Mr.  Lincoln's  name  was  mentioned  for  the  Presidency. 

On  the  9th  and  loth  of  May  (i860)  the  Republican  State  Con- 
vention met  at  Decatur  (Illinois).     Mr.  Lincoln  was  present  a§  a 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

LINCOLN  IN  i860 

From  an  ambrotype  taken  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  August  13,  i860.     The  original 
is  now  in  the  collection  of  Major  William  H.  Lambert,  Philadelphia. 


WIDENING  RENOWN  315 

spectator,  but  he  attracted  the  attention  of  Gov.  Oglesby,  who  rose 
and  said : 

"I  am  informed  that  a  distinguished  citizen  of  Illinois,  and 
one  whom  Illinois  will  ever  delight  to  honor,  is  present ;  and  I  wish 
to  move  that  this  body  invite  him  to  a  seat  on  the  stand.  " 

Public  interest  and  curiosity  were  aroused.  Who  was  this  dis- 
tinguished citizen? 

The  Governor  paused  a  moment,  and  then  uttered  the  name, 
"Abraham  Lincoln." 

Instantly  there  was  a  roar  of  applause,  there  was  a  rush  to 
where  the  astonished  Lincoln  sat,  he  was  seized,  and  the  crowd  being 
too  dense  to  pass  through,  he  was  literally  passed  over  the  heads 
and  shoulders  of  the  great  throng  until,  breathless,  he  found  himself 
on  the  platform.  Willing  or  unwilling,  he  was  for  the  time  being 
"  in  the  hands  of  his  friends.  " 

Later  on  Gov.  Oglesby  rose  once  more  and  said:  "There  is 
an  old  Democrat  outside  who  has  something  which  he  wishes  to  pre- 
sent to  the  Convention. " 

"What  is  it?"  "What  is  it?"  "Receive  it!"  shouts  the 
crowd. 

The  door  of  the  Wigwam  opens,  and  an  old  man,  bluff  and 
hearty,  comes  forward,  bearing  on  his  shoulder  two  small  rails, 
surmounted  by  a  banner,  with  this  inscription: 


TWO  RAILS 

From  a  lot  made  by  Abraham  Lincoln  and  John   Hanks, 

in  the  Sangamon  Bottom,  in  the  year  1830. 


This  old  man  was  John  Hanks  himself!  His  entrance  was 
greeted  with  tumultuous  applause. 

"Lincoln!  Lincoln!     A  speech!"  shouts  the  crowd. 

Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  amused.     He  rose  at  length  and  said: 

"Gentlemen,  I  suppose  you  want  to  know  something  about 
these  things"  (the  rails).  "  Well,  the  truth  is,  John  Hanks  and  I  did 
m£tke  rails  in  the  Sangamon  Bottom,  I  don't  know  whether  we 
made  those  rails  or  not;  fact  is,  I  don't  think  they  are  a  credit  to 
their  makers"  (laughing  as  he  spoke).  "But  I  do  know  this:  I 
made  rails  then  and  I  think  I  could  make  better  ones  than  these 


316  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


now."  Before  the  Convention  dissolved,  a  resolution  was  passed, 
declaring  that  "  Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  first  choice  of  the  Republi- 
can Party  of  Illinois  for  the  Presidency,  and  instructing  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Chicago  Convention  to  use  all  honorable  means  to  secure 
his  nomination,  and  to  cast  the  vote  of  the  State  as  a  unit  for  him.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln ,  the  Backwoods  Boy,  Horatio  Alger,  Jr.,  page  170. 

A  "Dismal"  Portrait  that  "Put  an  End  to  Hope" 

He  returned  from  this  tour  on  the  14th  of  March,  and  was  soon 
after  busy  with  an  important  suit  at  Chicago,  the  last  in  which  he 
was  to  be  actively  engaged  as  counsel.  This  was  a  case  which  may 
be  classed  among  the  celebrated,  involving  the  title  to  certain  val- 
uable real  estate — land  which  the  waves  of  Lake  Michigan  had 
gradually  extended  in  one  quarter  by  removal  of  soil  from  another, 
without  the  intervention  of  one  party  or  the  consent  of  the  other. 
The  suit,  that  of  Jones  against  Johnson,  was  tried  before  Judge 
Drummond,  of  the  United  States  District  Court.  The  plaintiff, 
who  retained  Lincoln  in  addition  to  other  counsel,  after  once  losing 
the  case,  now  had  the  satisfaction  of  obtaining  a  decision  in  his 
favor. 

Lincoln  was  at  home  with  his  family  three  days  before  the 
meeting  of  the  Republican  National  Convention  at  Chicago,  where 
its  delegates  were  already  gathering.  It  was  a  quiet  Sunday,  the 
like  of  which,  to  him,  would  never  return.  Said  Mrs.  Lincoln,  a 
week  or  two  later,  speaking  of  this  occasion : 

"  We  had  before  us  a  New  York  illustrated  weekly,  in  which  a 
number  of  Presidential  candidates  were  represented  in  a  double-page 
group,  Mr.  Seward's  portrait  being  conspicuous  over  all,  as  that  of 
the  coming  man.  Mr.  Lincoln's  picture  was  there,  such  as  it  was, 
and  it  couldn't  have  been  made  more  dismal.  Half  seriously  I  said 
to  him: 

"  'A  look  at  that  face  is  enough  to  put  an  end  to  hope.'  " 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  21s. 


CHAPTER  XII 

Candidate  for  President 

"Carleton"  Tells  of  Thurlow  Weed  and  "the  Mob" 

Arriving  in  Chicago  several  days  in  advance  of  the  assembling 
of  the  Convention,  I  found  a  number  of  delegates  from  Missouri 
actively  advocating  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Bates.  In  no  city  of  the 
Union  had  there  been  so  rapid  a  development  of  Republican  senti- 
ment as  in  St.  Louis.  The  Republicans  of  that  city  believed,  or 
affected  to  believe,  that  with  Mr.  Bates  they  could  secure  the  elec- 
toral vote  of  that  State. 

There  was  but  one  name  on  the  lips  of  the  Republicans  of 
Illinois — -that  of  Abraham  Lincoln.      .      .      . 

Thurlow  Weed  had  charge  of  Mr.  Seward's  affairs,  and  em- 
ployed all  the  means  and  appliances  known  to  New  York  political 
managers — even  to  enrolling  delegates  who  reported  themselves 
from  Texas.  I  discovered  a  band  of  claqueurs  in  the  interests  of 
Mr.  Seward,  who  hurrahed  upon  the  streets  and  in  the  Convention  at 
every  mention  of  his  name.     They  overdid  their  part. 

Norman  B.  Judd  had  charge  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  canvass,  but  there 
had  been  no  such  systematic  pulling  of  distant  wires  or  organization 
on  his  part.  Nor  was  there  need.  It  was  manifest  from  the  outset 
that  there  was  a  ground-swell  of  public  opinion,  if  I  may  use  the 
term,  which  promised  to  sweep  all  before  it,  and  which  rose,  like 
tides  of  the  sea,  during  the  second  day  of  the  Convention,  brought 
into  quick  action  by  the  determination  to  devour  Weed's  organized 
band. 

Arnold,  in  his  Life  of  Lincoln,  has  narrated  how  this  was  done, 
by  the  employment  of  a  Dr.  Ames,  who  had  a  voice  sufficiently 
powerful  to  be  heard  above  the  uproar  of  the  Lake  in  the  wildest 
storm.  He  was  a  Democrat,  but  readily  consented  to  shout  for 
Lincoln.  With  an  organized  band  he  was  placed  at  one  end  of 
the  Wigwam;  another  body  was  stationed  at  the  opposite  end. 
Mr.  Cook,  of  Ottawa,  a  delegate,  was  upon  the  platform.     Whenever 

(317) 


3i8  THE  STORY -.LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


he  waved  his  handkerchief  they  were  to  cheer.     It  was  that  hand- 
kerchief which  set  the  ten  thousand  Illinoisians  in  the  Wigwam  wild 

with  enthusiasm 

During  the  Convention  I  chanced  to  sit  at  a  small  table  with 
Thurlow  Weed,  and  had  an  excellent  opportunity  to  study  his  face. 
I  doubt  if  during  his  long  and  eventful  life  he  ever  experienced  a 
greater  disappointment  or  a  keener  sorrow.  I  saw  him  press  his 
fingers  hard  upon  his  eyelids  to  keep  back  the  tears.  His  plans 
all  miscarried.  It  was  the  sinking  of  a  great  hope.  The  rail- 
splitter,  story  teller — ^the  ungainly  uneducated  practitioner  of  the 
Sangamon  bar  ....  instead  of  the  able,  learned,  classi- 
cal, polished  senator,  [and]  Mr.  Weed  did  not  comprehend  that  the 
moh  in  the  Wigwam  was  the  best  possible  representative  of  the 
rising  public  opinion. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Liiicoln,  Charles  Carleton  Coffin,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice, 
page  164. 

"I  Authorize  No  Bargains" 

Among  my  visitors  in  the  early  part  of  May  was  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Alley,  of  Massachusetts,  who  gave  me  a  deeply  interesting  inside 
glimpse  of  the  Chicago  Republican  Convention  of  i860.  The  popu- 
lar current  had,  at  first,  set  very  strongly  in  favor  of  Mr.  Seward, 
who,  many  supposed,  would  be  nominated  almost  by  acclamation. 
The  evening  before  the  balloting  the  excitement  was  at  the  highest 
pitch.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  telegraphed  at  Springfield,  that  his  chances 
with  the  Convention  depended  on  obtaining  the  votes  of  two  delega- 
tions which  were  named  in  the  despatch;  and  that,  to  secure  this 
support,  he  must  pledge  himself,  if  elected,  to  give  places  in  his 
Cabinet  to  the  respective  heads  of  those  delegations.  A  reply  was 
immediately  returned  over  the  wires,  characteristic  of  the  man. 
It  was  to  this  effect : 

"  I  authorize  no  bargains  and  will  he  hound  by  none. 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  119. 

How  Lincoln  Was  Nominated 

The  Republican  National  Convention  met,  according  to  appoint- 
ment, at  Chicago  on  May  i6  (i860).  A  large  temporary  wooden 
building,  christened  "The  Wigwam,"  had  been  erected  in  which 


(319) 


320  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

to  hold  its  sessions,  and  it  was  estimated  that  ten  thousand  persons 
were  assembled  in  it  to  witness  the  proceedings.  William  H.  Sew- 
ard of  New  York  was  recognized  as  the  leading  candidate,  but  Chase 
of  Ohio,  Cameron  of  Pennsylvania,  Bates  of  Missouri,  and  several 
prominent  Republicans  from  other  States  were  known  to  have 
active  and  zealous  followers 

It  was  almost  self-evident  that  in  the  coming  November  elec- 
tion victory  or  defeat  would  hang  upon  the  result  in  the  four 
pivotal  States  of  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
.  .  .  There  was  a  chance  that  one  or  more  of  these  four  pivotal 
free  States  might  cast  its  vote  for  Douglas  and  popular  sovereignty. 

A  candidate  was  needed,  therefore,  who  could  successfully 
cope  with  Douglas  and  the  Douglas  theory;  and  this  ability  had 
been  convincingly  demonstrated  by  Lincoln.  As  a  mere  personal 
choice,  a  majority  of  the  convention  wo:  Id  have  preferred  Seward ; 
but  in  the  four  pivotal  States  there  were  many  voters  who  believed 
Seward's  antislavery  views  to  be  too  radical.  They  shrank  appre- 
hensively from  the  phrase  in  one  of  the  speeches  that  "there  is 
a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution.  "  These  pivotal  States  all  lay 
adjoining  slave  States,  and  their  public  opinion  was  infected  with 
something  of  the  undefined  dread  of  "abolitionism.  "      .... 

When  the  Convention  met,  the  fresh,  hearty  hopefulness  of  its 
members  was  a  most  inspiring  reflection  of  the  public  opinion  in 

the  States  that  sent  them Few  conventions  have  ever 

been  pervaded  by  such  a  depth  of  feeling,  or  exhibited  such  a 

reserve  of  latent  enthusiasm Not  alone  the  delegates 

on  the  central  platform,  but  the  multitude  of  spectators  as  well, 
felt  that  they  were  playing  a  part  in  a  great  historical  event. 

The  temporary,  and  afterward  the  permanent  organization, 
was  finished  on  the  first  day.  On  the  second  day  the  platform  com- 
mittee submitted  its  work,  embodying  the  carefully  considered  and 
skilfully  framed  body  of  doctrines  upon  which  the  Republican 
party,  made  up  only  four  years  before  .  .  .  was  now  able  to  find 
common  and  durable  ground  of  agreement 

The  platform  was  about  to  be  adopted  without  objection 
when  a  flurry  of  discussion  arose  over  an  amendment,  proposed  by 
Mr.  Giddings  of  Ohio,  to  incorporate  in  it  that  phrase  of  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  which  declares  the  right  of  all  men  to  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.     Impatience  was  at  once 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  321 

manifested  lest  any  change  should  produce  endless  delay  and 
dispute. 

"  I  believe  in  the  Ten  Commandments,"  commented  a  member, 
"but  I  do  not  want  them  in  a  political  platform;"  and  the  proposi- 
tion was  voted  down.  Upon  this  the  old  antislavery  veteran  felt 
himself  aggrieved,  and,  taking  up  his  hat,  marched  out  of  the  Con- 
vention  

On  the  third  day  it  was  certain  that  balloting  would  begin,  and 
crowds  hurried  to  the  Wigwam  in  a  fever  of  curiosity.  Having 
grown  restless  at  the  indispensable  routine  preliminaries,  when  Mr. 
Evarts  nominated  William  H.  Seward  of  New  York  for  President, 
they  greeted  his  name  with  a  perfect  storm  of  applause.  Then  Mr. 
Judd  nominated  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois,  and  in  the  tremendous 
cheering  tha^  broke  from  the  throats  of  his  admirers  and  follow- 
ers the  former  demonstration  dwindled  to  comparative  feebleness. 
Again  and  again  these  contests  of  lungs  and  enthusiasm  were  re- 
peated as  the  choice  of  New  York  was  seconded  by  Michigan,  and 
that  of  Illinois  by  Indiana. 

When  other  names  had  been  duly  presented,  the  cheering  at 
length  subsided,  and  the  chairman  announced  that  balloting  would 
begin.  Many  spectators  had  provided  themselves  with  tally-lists, 
and  when  the  first  roll-call  was  completed  were  able  at  once  to  per- 
ceive the  drift  of  popular  preference.  Cameron,  Chase,  Bates,  Mc- 
Lean, Dayton  and  Collamer  were  indorsed  by  the  substantial  votes 
of  their  own  States ;  but  two  names  stood  out  in  marked  superiority : 
Seward,  who  had  received  one  hundred  and  seventy -three  and  one- 
half  votes,  and  Lincoln,  one  hundred  and  two. 

The  New  York  delegation  was  so  thoroughly  persuaded  of  the 
final  success  of  their  candidate  that  they  did  not  comprehend  the 
significance  of  this  first  ballot.  Had  they  reflected  that  their 
delegation  alone  had  contributed  seventy  votes  to  Seward's  total, 
they  would  have  understood  that  outside  of  the  Empire  State,  upon 
this  first  showing,  Lincoln  held  their  favorite  almost  an  even  race. 

As  the  second  ballot  progressed,  their  anxiety  visibly  increased. 
They  watched  with  eagerness  as  the  complimentary  votes  first  cast 
for  State  favorites  were  transferred  now  to  one,  now  to  the  other  of 
the  recognized  leaders  in  the  contest,  and  their  hopes  sank  when  the 
result  of  the  second  ballot  was  announced :    Seward,  one  hundred 

a: 


322  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

— ^—  11    !■■■■■■■■■  III.  .Wii^i*.!  I      III.       imi    ■  I  I.I.       ■»■■— ^.iii....   ■  ■        ..I       »  I  I..     ■■.■^— ^^— ■^■— a^— H^ 

and  eighty -four  and  one-half;  Lincoln,  one-hundred  and  eighty-one; 
and  a  volume  of  applause,  which  was  with  difficulty  checked  by  the 
chairman,  shook  the  Wigwam  at  this  announcement. 

Then  followed  a  short  interval  of  active  caucusing  in  the 
various  delegations,  while  excited  men  went  about  rapidly  inter- 
changing questions,  solicitations  and  messages  between  delegations 
from  different  States.  Neither  candidate  had  yet  received  a 
majority  of  all  the  votes  cast,  and  the  third  ballot  was  begun 
amid  a  deep,  almost  painful  suspense,  delegates  and  spectators 
alike  recording  each  announcement  of  votes  on  their  tally -sheets 
with  nervous  fingers. 

But  the  doubt  was  of  short  duration.  The  second  ballot  had 
unmistakably  pointed  out  the  winning  man.  Hesitating  delega- 
tions and  fragments  from  many  States  steadily  swelled  the  Lincoln 
column.  Long  before  the  secretaries  made  the  official  annoimce- 
ment,  the  totals  had  been  figured  up:  Lincoln,  two  hundred  and 
thirty-one  and  one-half ;  Seward,  one  hundred  and  eighty.  Counting 
the  scattering  votes,  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  ballots  had  been 
cast,  and  two  hundred  and  thirty -three  were  necessary  to  a  choice. 
Seward  had  lost  four  and  one-half,  Lincoln  had  gained  fifty  and  one- 
half,  and  only  one  and  one-half  votes  more  were  needed  to  made  a 
nomination. 

The  Wigwam  suddenly  became  as  still  as  a  church,  and  every- 
body leaned  forward  to  see  whose  voice  would  break  the  spell. 
Before  the  lapse  of  a  minute,  David  K.  Cartter  sprang  upon  his 
chair  and  reported  a  change  of  four  Ohio  votes  from  Chase  to  Lin- 
coln. Then  the  teller  shouted  a  name  toward  a  skylight,  and  the 
boom  of  cannon  from  the  roof  of  the  Wigwam  announced  the  nom- 
ination and  started  the  cheering  of  the  overjoyed  Illinoisians  down 
the  long. Chicago  streets;  while  in  the  Wigwam,  delegation  after 
delegation  changed  its  vote  to  the  victor  amid  a  tumult  of  hurrahs. 

When -quiet  was  somewhat  restored,  Mr.  Evarts,  speaking  for 
New  York  and  for  Seward,  moved  to  make  the  nomination  unani- 
mous, and  Mr.  Browning  gracefully  returned  the  thanks  of  Illinois 
for  the  honor  the  Convention  had  conferred  upon  the  State.  In  the 
afternoon  the  Convention  completed  its  work  by  nominating  Han- 
nibal Hamlin  of  Maine  for  Vice-President ;  and  as  the  delegates  sped 
homeward  in  the  night  trains,  they  witnessed,  in  the  bonfires  and 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  323 

cheering  crowds  at  the  stations,  that  a  memorable  Presidential 
campaign  was  already  begun. 

A  Short  Life  of  Abraharn  Liitcoln,  John  G.  Nicolay,  page  144. 

A  Woman's  Description  of  that  Nomination  Scene 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  present  at  the  National  Conven- 
tion in  Chicago,  in  i860,  which  nominated  Mr,  Lincoln  for  the  Pres- 
idency. It  was  held  in  an  immense  building  erected  for  the  occa- 
sion, and  known  as  the  "Wigwam."  I  had  undertaken  to  report 
the  proceedings  for  an  editor  friend  and  a  seat  was  assigned  me  near 
the  platform,   ....   in  the  midst  of  the  great  reportorial  army 

collected    from   all    parts    of   the    country From   the 

immensity  of  the  Wigwam,  the  proceedings  could  not  be  heard 
in  the  gallery,  and  seemed  there  like  a  gigantic  pantomime.    .    .    . 

Women  reporters  were  then  almost  unheard  of;  and  incon- 
spicuous as  I  had  endeavored  to  make  myself  by  dressing  in  black, 
like  my  brethren  of  the  press,  the  marshal  of  the  day  spied  me,  after 
the  lower  floor  was  densely  packed  with  masculinity.  In  stentorian 
tones  that  rang  through  the  building,  while  his  extended  arm  and 
forefinger  pointed  me  out,  and  made  me  the  target  for  thousands  of 
eyes,  he  ordered  me  to  withdraw  my  profane  womanhood  from  the 
sacred  enclosure  provided  for  the  men,  and  "  go  up  higher.  "  I  rose 
mechanically  to  obey,  but  the  crowd  rendered  this  impossible.  .  . 
The  reporters  about  me  then  took  the  matter  into  their  own  hands, 
and  in  a  tumult  of  voices  cavalierly  bade  me,  "Sit  still!"  and  the 
marshal,  "Dry  up!"  .    .    .   and  then  I  was  left  in  peace 

I  was  well  repaid  for  the  annoyance,  by  being  a  near  witness 
of  the  electric  scenes  which  followed  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
for  the  Presidency,  on  the  third  ballot. 

Who  that  saw  the  tumultuous  rapture  of  that  occasion  could 
ever  forget  it !  Men  embraced  each  other,  and  fell  on  one  another's 
neck,  and  wept  out  their  repressed  feeling.  They  threw  their  hats 
in  air,  and  almost  rent  the  roof  with  their  huzzahs.  Thousands 
and  thousands  were  packed  in  the  streets  outside,  who  stood  pa- 
tiently receiving  accounts  of  the  proceedings  within,  from  reporters 
posted  on  the  roof,  listening  at  the  numerous  open  skylights  and 
shouting  them  in  detail  to  the  crowd  below.  Sometimes,  mes- 
sengers ran  from  these  reporters  at  the  skylights  to  the  eaves  of  the 
building,  thence  to  vociferate  to  the  remote  but  patiently  waiting 


324  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

crowd  outside  what  had  just  been  said  or  done.  They  would  then 
take  up  the  subsiding  chorus  of  shouts  within,  and  re-echo  them 
still  more  wildly,  until  they  drowned  the  city's  multitudinous  roar, 
and  were  heard  a  mile  away.  The  billows  of  this  delirious  joy 
surged  around  me,  as  I  sat  amid  the  swaying,  rocking  forms  of  men 
who  had  sprung  to  their  feet  and  grasped  each  other  by  the  hand, 
or  had  fallen  into  one  another's  arms,  and  were  laughing,  crying 
and  talking  incoherently. 

I  confess  I  was  not  en  rapport  with  the  insanity  of  gladness 
raging  around  me.  It  seemed  to  me  these  demonstrations  were 
made  rather  because  the  anti slavery  principle  had  triumphed,  than 
because  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  was  a  special  favorite.  The  great 
majority  knew  him  only  as  a  country  lawyer,  and  not  very  distin- 
guished at  that.  But  they  also  knew  that  he  was  intensely  hostile 
to  human  slavery,  and  had  so  avowed  himself. 

"  Is  it  certain  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  an  uncompromising  anti- 
slavery  man?"  I  inquired  of  a  Massachusetts  reporter  next  me. 
"There  is  no  humbug  about  it?  Mr.  Lincoln  is  not  antislavery 
just  now  for  the  sake  of  getting  votes,  is  he?     Can  you  inform  me? " 

For  answer,  he  took  from  his  pocketbook  a  little  fragment  of 
newspaper,  which  contained  this  extract  from  his  "Peoria,  111., 
Speech,"  made  October  i6,  1854,  and  passed  it  to  me  with  the 
simple  query,  "Do  you  think  he  can  take  the  back  track  after 
saying  that?"     This  is  the  quotation: 

"Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature — op- 
position to  it,  in  the  love  of  justice.  These  principles  are  in  eternal 
antagonism ;  and  when  brought  into  collision  as  fiercely  as  slavery 
extension  brings  them,  shocks  and  throes  and  convulsions  must 
follow  ceaselessly. 

"Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise;  repeal  all  compromise; 
repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  repeal  all  past  history; 
you  cannot  repeal  human  nature.  It  will  still  be  in  the  abun- 
dance of  man's  heart  that  slavery  extension  is  wrong,  and  out  of 
the  abundance  of  the  heart  his  mouth  will  continue  to  speak. " 

My  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  550. 

The  Candidate  Receives  the  News  of  His  Nomination 

And  while  all  this  went  on,  where  was  Lincoln?  Too  much  of 
a  candidate,  as  he  had  told  Swett,  to  go  to  Chicago,  yet  hardly 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT 


325 


enough  of  one  to  stay  away,  he  had  ended  by  remaining  in  Spring- 
field, where  he  spent  the  week  in  restless  waiting  and  discussion. 
He  drifted  about  the  public  square,  went  often  to  the  telegraph 
office,  looked  out  for  every  returning  visitor  from  Chicago,  played 
occasional  games  of  ball,  made  fruitless  efforts  to  read,  went  home 
at  unusual  hours.  He  felt  in  his  bones  that  he  had  a  fighting  chance, 
so  he  told  a  friend,  but  the  chance  was  not  so  strong  that  he  could 
indulge  in  much  exultation.  By  Friday  morning  he  was  tired  and 
depressed,  but  still  eager  for  news. 

One  of  his  friends,  the  Hon.  James  C.  Conkling,  returned  early  in 
the  day  from  Chicago,  and  Lincoln  soon  went  around  to  his  law  office. 

"  Upon  entering, "  says  Mr.  Conkling,  "  Lincoln  threw  himself 
upon  the  office  lounge,  and  remarked  rather 
wearily, 

"  'Well,  I  guess  rilgoback  to  practising  law. ' 

"As  he  lay  there  on  the  lounge,  I  gave 
him  such  information  as  I  had  been  able  to 
obtain.  I  told  him  the  tendency  was  to  drop 
Seward;  that  the  outlook  for  him  was  very 
encouraging.  He  listened  attentively,  and 
thanked  me,  saying  I  had  given  him  a  clearer 
idea  of  the  situation  than  he  had  been  able  to 
get  from  any  other  source.  He  was  not  very 
sanguine  of  the  result.  He  did  not  express 
the  opinion  that  he  would  be  nominated." 

But  he  could  not  be  quiet,  and  soon  left 
Mr.   Conkling  to  join  the   throng  aroimd  the 
telegraph  office,  where  the  reports  from  the  convention  were  com- 
ing in.     The  nominations  were  being  reported,  his  own  among  the 
others.     Then  news  came  that  the  balloting  had  begim.     He  could 
hardly  endure  to  wait  for  the  result. 

He  remembered  a  commission  his  wife  had  given  him  that 
morning,  and  started  across  the  square  to  execute  it.  His  errand 
was  done,  and  he  was  standing  in  the  door  of  the  shop,  talking,  when 
a  shout  went  up  from  the  group  at  the  telegraph  office.  The  next 
instant  an  excited  boy  came  rushing  pell-mell  down  the  stairs  of  the 
office,  and,  plunging  through  the  crowd,  ran  across  the  square, 
shouting, 

"  Mr.  Lincoln,  Mr.  Lincoln,  you  are  nominated!' ' 


RICHARD  YATES 

Lincoln's  friend  when  a 
young  man  and  War  Gov- 
ernor of  Illinois  while 
Lincoln  was  President. 


326  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

The  cry  was  repeated  on  all  sides.  The  people  came  flocking 
about  him,  half  laughing,  half  crying,  shaking  his  hand  when  they 
could  get  it,  and  one  another's  when  they  could  not.  For  a  few 
minutes,  carried  away  by  excitement,  Lincoln  seemed  simply  one  of 
the  proud  and  exultant  crowd.  Then,  remembering  what  it  all 
meant,  he  said: 

"  My  friends,  I  am  glad  to  receive  your  congratulations,  and  a? 
there  is  a  little  woman  down  on  Eighth  Street  who  \vill  be  glad  to 
hear  the  news,  you  must  excuse  me  until  I  inform  her.  " 

He  slipped  away,  telegram  in  hand,  his  coat-tails  flying  out 
behind,  and  strode  towards  home,  only  to  find  when  he  reached  there 
that  his  friends  were  before  him,  and  the  "little  woman  "  already 
knew  the  honor  which  for  twenty  years  and  more  she  had  believed 
and  stoutly  declared  her  husband  deserved,  and  which  a  great 
multitude  of  m.en  had  sworn  to  do  their  best- to  obtain  for  him, 
at  last  had  come. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  357. 

A  Neighbor's  Incredulity 

Some  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  immediate  neighbors  were  taken  as  com- 
pletely by  surprise  as  those  in  distant  States.  An  old  resident  of 
Springfield  told  me  that  there  lived  within  a  block  or  two  of  his 
house,  in  that  city,  an  Englishman,  who,  of  course,  still  cherished  to 
some  extent  the  ideas  and  prejudices  of  his  native  land.  Upon 
hearing  of  the  choice  at  Chicago  he  could  not  contain  his  astonish- 
ment. 

"What!"  said  he,  "Abe  Lincoln  nominated  for  President  of  the 
United  States?  Can  it  be  possible!  A  man  that  buys  a  ten-cent 
beefsteak  for  his  breakfast,  and  carries  it  home  himself! " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  121. 

The  Committee  Formally  Informs  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Is  Informally 

Entertained 

On  the  morning  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Convention  a 
single  passenger  car,  drawn  by  one  of  the  fastest  locomotives  of  the 
Illinois  Central  road,  glided  out  from  the  Grand  Central  depot, 
bearing  the  Committee  appointed  by  the  Convention  to  notify  Mr. 
Lincoln  of  his  nomination.  .  .  .  There  were  in  all,  including 
correspondents,  about  thirty  persons. 

The  sun  was  setting  when  we  reached  Springfield.     A  crowd 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  327 

was  gathering  in  the  public  square,  not  to  welcome  the  Committee 
but  to  listen  to  a  speech  from  John  A.  McClelland  (afterv\'ards 
general),  member  of  Congress  from  that  district,  in  support  of  Mr. 
Douglas. 

It  was  past  eight  o'clock  Saturday  evening  when  the  Com- 
mittee called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  at  his  home — a  plain,  comfortable, 
two-storied  house,  a  hallway  in  the  center,  a  plain  white  paling  in 
front.  The  arrival  of  the  Committee  had  awakened  no  enthusiasm 
on  the  part  of  the  townspeople.  A  dozen  citizens  gathered  in  the 
street.  One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  sons  was  perched  on  the  gatepost. 
The  Committee  entered  the  room  at  the  left  hand  of  the  hall. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  standing  in  front  of  the  fireplace,  wearing  a 
black  frock-coat.  He  bowed,  but  it  was  not  gracefully  done. 
There  was  an  evident  constraint  and  embarrassment.  He  stood 
erect,  in  a  stiff  and  unnatural  position,  with  downcast  eyes.  There 
was  a  diffidence  like  that  of  an  ungainly  schoolboy  standing  alone 
before  a  critical  audience.  Mr.  Ashmun  stated  briefly  the  action 
of  the  Convention  and  the  errand  of  the  Committee. 

Then  came  the  reply ....  It  was  a  sympathetic  voice, 
with  an  indescribable  charm  in  the  tones.  .  .  .  There  was  that 
about  him  that  commanded  instant  admiration.  A  stranger  meet- 
ing him  on  a  country  road,  ignorant  of  his  history,  would  have  said, 
"  He  is  no  ordinary  man.  " 

Mr.  Lincoln's  reply  was  equally  brief.  With  the  utterance  of 
the  last  syllable  his  manner  instantly  changed.  A  smile,  like  the 
sun  shining  through  the  rift  of  a  passing  cloud  sweeping  over  the 
landscape,  illuminated  his  face,  lighting  up  every  homely  feature, 
as  he  grasped  the  hand  of  Mr.  Kelley. 

"  You  are  a  tall  man.  Judge.     What  is  your  height? " 

"Six  feet  three." 

"I  beat  you.  I  am  six  feet  four  without  my  high-heeled 
boots." 

"  Pennsylvania  bows  to  Illinois.  I  am  glad  that  we  have  found 
a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  whom  we  can  look  up  to,  for  we  have 
been  informed  that  there  were  only  '  Little  Giants '  in  Illinois,"  was 
Mr.  Kelley 's  graceful  reply. 

All  embarrassment  was  gone.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  longer  the 
ungainly  schoolboy Conversation  flowed  as   freely 


328  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

and  laughingly  as  a  meadow  brook.  There  was  a  bubbling  of 
quaint  humor,  fragrant  with  Western  idiom,  making  the  hour  ex- 
ceedingly enjoyable. 

"  Mrs.  Lincoln  will  be  pleased  to  see  you,  gentlemen,  "  said  Mr. 
Lincoln.  "You  will  find  her  in  the  other  room.  You  must  be 
thirsty  after  your  long  ride.  You  will  find  a  pitcher  of  water  in  the 
library." 

I  crossed  the  hall  and  entered  the  library.  There  were  miscel- 
laneous books  on  the  shelves,  two  globes,  celestial  and  terrestrial, 
in  the  corners  of  the  room,  a  plain  table  with  writing  materials  upon 
it,  a  pitcher  of  cold  water,  and  glasses,  but  no  wines  or  liquors. 
There  was  humor  in  the  invitation  to  take  a  glass  of  water,  which 
was  explained  to  me  by  a  citizen,  who  said  that  w^hen  it  was  known 
that  the  Committee  was  coming,  several  citizens  called  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  informed  him  that  some  entertainment  must  be 
provided. 

"  Yes,  that  is  so.  What  ought  to  be  done?  Just  let  me  know 
and  I  will  attend  to  it, "  he  said. 

"  Oh,  we  will  supply  the  needful  liquors,  "  said  his  friends. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "I  thank  you  for  your  kind 
intentions,  but  must  respectfully  decline  your  offer.  I  have  no 
liquors  in  my  house,  and  have  never  been  in  the  habit  of  enter- 
taining my  friends  in  that  way.  I  cannot  permit  my  friends  to  do 
for  me  what  I  will  not  myself  do.  I  shall  provide  cold  water — 
nothing  else. " 

What  Mr.  Lincoln's  feelings  may  have  been  over  his  nomina- 
tion will  never  be  known;  doubtless  he  was  gratified,  but  there  was 
no  visible  elation.  After  the  momentarily  assumed  dignity  he  was 
himself  again — plain  Abraham  Lincoln — man  of  the  people. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Charles  Carleton  Coffin.   Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page 
i66. 

The  Speeches  and  Lincoln's  Letter  of  Acceptance 

The  next  day,  the  excursion  train  arrived  from  Chicago  with  a 
large  number  of  delegates,  and  the  Committee  appointed  by  the 
Convention,  to  make  Lincoln  acquainted  with  his  nomination. 

The  deputation  was  received  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  house,  and  when 
the  guests  had  assembled  in  the  parlor,  Mr.  Ashmun,  the  President 
of  the  Convention,  said: 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  329 


"I  have,  sir,  the  honor,  in  behalf  of  the  gentlemen  who  are 
present,  a  committee  appointed  by  the  Republican  Convention,  re- 
cently assembled  at  Chicago,  to  discharge  a  most  pleasant  duty. 
We  have  come,  sir,  under  a  vote  of  instructions  to  that  Committee, 
to  notify  you  that  you  have  been  selected  by  the  Convention  of  the 
Republicans  at  Chicago,  for  President  of  the  United  States.  They 
instruct  us,  sir,  to  notify  you  of  that  selection,  and  that  Committee 
deem  it  not  only  respectful  to  yourself,  but  appropriate  to  the  im- 
portant matter  which  they  have  in  hand,  that  they  should  come 
in  person  and  present  to  you  the  authentic  evidence  of  the  ac- 
tion of  that  Convention ;  and,  sir,  without  any  phrase  which  shall 
either  be  considered  personally  plauditory  to  yourself,  or  which  shall 
have  any  reference  to  the  principles  involved  in  the  questions  which 
are  connected  with  your  nomination,  I  desire  to  present  to  you  the 
letter  which  has  been  prepared,  and  which  informs  you  of  the  nom- 
ination, and  with  it  the  platform,  resolutions,  and  sentiments  which 
the  Convention  adopted.  Sir,  at  your  convenience  we  shall  be  glad 
to  receive  from  you  such  a  response  as  it  may  be  your  pleasure  to 
give  us. " 

To  this  address  Mr.  Lincoln  listened  with  grave  attention  and 
replied : 

"Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee: 

"  I  tender  to  you  and  through  you  to  the  Republican  National 
Convention,  and  all  the  people  represented  in  it,  my  profoundest 
thanks  for  the  high  honor  done  me,  which  you  now  formally  an- 
nounce. Deeply,  and  even  painfully  sensible  of  the  great  responsi- 
bility which  is  inseparable  from  this  high  honor — a  responsibility 
which  I  could  almost  wish  had  fallen  upon  some  one  of  the  far  more 
eminent  men  and  experienced  statesmen  w^hose  distinguished 
names  were  before  the  Convention,  I  shall,  by  your  leave,  consider 
more  fully  the  resolutions  of  the  Convention  denominated  the  plat- 
form, and  without  unnecessary  or  unreasonable  delay,  respond  to 
you,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  writing,  not  doubting  that  the  platform  will 
be  found  satisfactory,  and  the  nomination  gratefully  accepted. 

"And  now  I  will  not  longer  defer  the  pleasure  of  taking  you, 
and  each  of  you  by  the  hand. " 

After  this  response,  it  is  proper  to  immediately  add  the  lettei 
in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  has  since  formally  accepted  the  nomination: 


330  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Springfield,  Illinois,  May  22,,  i860. 
"Hon.  George  Ashmun, 

''President  of  the  Republican  National  Convention. 

"Sir :  I  accept  the  nomination  tendered  me  by  the  Convention 
over  which  you  presided,  of  which  I  am  formally  apprised  in  the 
letter  of  yourself  and  others  acting  as  a  Committee  of  the  Conven- 
tion for  that  purpose. 

"The  declaration  of  the  principles  and  sentiments  which  ac- 
companies your  letter  meets  my  approval,  and  it  shall  be  my  care 
not  to  violate  it,  or  disregard  it  in  any  part. 

"Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and  with  due 
regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were  represented  in  the 
Convention,  to  the  rights  of  all  the  States  and  Territories  and  people 
of  the  nation,  to  the  inviolability  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  per- 
petual union,  harmony,  and  prosperity  of  all,  I  am  most  happy  to 
co-operate  for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  declared  by  the 
Convention. 

"Your  obliged  friend  and  fellow -citizen, 
"Abraham  Lincoln." 

Life  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  W.  D.  Howells,  page  90. 

Positions  Taken  by  the  Three  Great  Parties  on  the  Slavery  Question 

The  Southern  leaders  gave  repeated  and  earnest  warnings: 
.  .  .  ."Gentlemen  from  the  North!  look  well  to  your  doings! 
If  you  insist  on  your  'Squatter  Sovereignty '  platform,  in  full  view  of 
its  condemnation  by  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  you 
break  up  the  Democratic  party — nay,  more:  you  break  up  the 
Union!  The  unity  of  the  Democratic  party  is  the  last  bond  that 
holds  the  Union  together:  that  snapped,  there  is  no  other  that 
can  be  trusted  for  a  year.  " 

Discarding  that  of  the  ' '  Constitutional  Union ' '  party  as  mean- 
ing anything  in  general  and  nothing  in  particular,  the  Lincoln, 
Douglas,  and  Breckenridge  parties  had  deliberately  planted  them- 
selves, respectively,  on  the  following  positions : 

I.  Lwco/w.— Slavery  can  only  exist  by  virtue  of  municipal 
law ;  and  there  is  no  law  for  it  in  the  Territories,  and  no  power  to 
enact  one.  Congress  can  establish  or  legalize  Slavery  nowhere, 
but  is  boimd  to  prohibit  it  in  or  exclude  it  from  any  and  every 


CANUIUAIE  FOK  FKESIUENT  331 

Federal  Territory,  whenever  and  wherever  there  shall  be  necessity 
or  exclusion  or  prohibition. 

2.  Douglas. — Slavery  or  No  Slavery  in  any  Territory  is  entirely 
the  affair  of  the  white  inhabitants  of  such  Territory.  If  they  choose 
to  have  it,  it  is  their  right ;  if  they  choose  not  to  have  it,  they  have 
a  right  to  exclude  or  prohibit  it.  Neither  Congress  nor  the  people 
of  the  Union,  or  any  part  of  it,  outside  of  said  Territory,  have  any 
right  to  meddle  with  or  trouble  themselves  about  the  matter. 

3.  Breckenridge. — The  citizen  of  any  State  has  a  right  to  migrate 
to  any  Territory,  taking  w4th  him  anything  which  is  property  by 
the  law  of  his  own  State,  and  hold,  enjoy,  and  be  protected  in  the 
use  of  such  property  in  said  Territory.  And  Congress  is  bound  to 
render  such  protection  wherever  necessary,  whether  with  or  without 
the  co-operation  of  the  Territorial  Legislature. 

The  American  Conflict,  Horace  Greeley,  page  322. 

Lincoln's  Own  Life-Story 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  the  Presidency  in  i860, 
a  campaign  bookmaker  asked  him  to  give  the  prominent  features  of 
his  life.  He  replied  in  the  language  of  Gray's  "  Elegy, "  that  his  life 
presented  nothing  but 

"The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor. " 

He  had,  however,  written  for  his  friend  Jesse  W,  Fell  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"I  was  bom  February  12,  1809,  in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 
My  parents  were  both  born  in  Virginia,  of  undistinguished  families 
— second  families,  perhaps  I  should  say.  My  mother,  who  died  in 
my  tenth  year,  was  of  a  family  of  the  name  of  Hanks,  some  of  whom 
now  reside  in  Adams,  some  others  in  Macon  counties,  Illinois.  My 
paternal  grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln,  emigrated  from  Rock- 
ingham County,  Virginia,  to  Kentucky,  about  1781  or  2,  where,  a 
year  or  two  later,  he  was  killed  by  Indians, — not  in  battle,  but  by 
stealth,  when  he  was  laboring  to  open  a  farm  in  the  forest.  His 
ancestors,  who  were  Quakers,  went  to  Virginia  from  Berks  County, 
Pennsylvania.  An  effort  to  identify  them  with  the  New  England 
family  of  the  same  name  ended  in  nothing  more  definite  than  a 
similarity  of  Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as  Enoch,  Levi, 
Mordecai,  Solomon,  Abraham,  and  the  like. 


332  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"My  father,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six  years  of  age; 
and  he  grew  up  literally  without  education.  He  removed  from 
Kentucky  to  w^hat  is  now  Spencer  County,  Indiana,  in  my  eighth 
year.  We  reached  our  new  home  about  the  time  the  State  came  into 
the  Union.  It  was  a  wild  region,  with  many  bears  and  other  wild 
animals  still  in  the  woods.  There  I  grew  up.  There  were  some 
schools,  so  called ;  but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of  a  teacher 
beyond  'readin,'  ivritin'  and  cipherin'  '  to  the  Rule  of  Three. 
If  a  straggler  supposed  to  understand  Latin  happened  to  sojourn 
in  the  neighborhood,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was 
absolutely  nothing  to  excite  ambition  for  education.  Of  course, 
when  I  came  of  age  I  did  not  know  much.  Still,  somehow,  I  could 
read,  write  and  cipher  to  the  Rule  of  Three;  but  that  was  all.  I 
have  not  been  to  school  since.  The  littJe  advance  I  now  have 
upon  this  store  of  education,  I  have  picked  up  from  time  to  time 
under  the  pressure  of  necessity. 

' '  I  was  raised  to  farm  work,  which  1  continued  till  I  was  twenty- 
two.  At  twenty-one  I  came  to  Illinois,  and  passed  the  first  year 
in  Macon  County.  Then  I  got  to  New  Salem,  at  that  time  in  San- 
gamon, now  in  Menard  County,  where  I  remained  a  year  as  a  sort  of 
clerk  in  a  store.  Then  came  the  Black  Hawk  War;  and  I  was 
elected  a  Captain  of  Volunteers — a  success  which  gave  me  more 
pleasure  than  any  I  have  had  since.  I  went  [through]  the  campaign, 
was  elated,  ran  for  the  Legislature  the  same  year  (1832)  and  was 
beaten — the  only  time  I  haveever  been  beaten  by  the  people.  The 
next  and  three  succeeding  biennial  elections,  I  was  elected  to  the 
Legislature.  I  was  not  a  candidate  afterwards.  During  this  Leg- 
islative period  I  had  studied  law,  and  removed  to  Springfield  to 
practise  it.  In  1846  I  was  elected  once  to  the  lower  House  of  Con- 
gress. Was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election.  From  1849  to  1854, 
both  inclusive,  practised  law  more  assiduously  than  ever  before. 
Always  a  Whig  in  politics;  and  generally  on  the  Whig  electoral 
tickets,  making  active  canvasses.  I  was  losing  interest  in  politics, 
when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  aroused  me  again. 
What  I  have  done  since  then  is  pretty  well  known. 

"If  any  personal  description  of  me  is  thought  desirable,  it  may 
be  said,  I  am,  in  height,  six  feet  four  inches  nearly;  lean  in  flesh, 
weighing,  on  an  average,  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds;  dark 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  333 

complexion,  with  coarse  black  hair  and  gray  eyes.     No  other  marks 
or  brands  recollected. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 
"J.  W.  Fell,  Esq." 

Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  9. 

"A  Real  Representative  Man" 

The  opposition  press  found  in  Lincoln's  obscurity  abundant 
editorial  material.  He  was  a  "third-rate  country  lawyer,  poorer 
even  than  poor  Pierce,  "  said  the  New  York  Herald.  Of  course, 
he  would  be  a  "nullity"  if  he  were  elected.  How  could  a  man  be 
otherwise  who  had  never  done  anything  but  deliver  a  few  lectures 
and  get  himself  beaten  by  Douglas  in  the  campaign  of  '58?  They 
hooted  at  his  "coarse  and  clumsy  jokes,"  declared  that  he  "could 
not  speak  good  grammar,  "  and  that  all  he  was  really  distinguished 
for  was  rail-splitting,  running  a  "  broad- horn, "  and  bearing  the 
sobriquet  of  "honest  old  Abe."  The  snobbishness  of  the  country 
came  out  in  full.  He  was  not  a  gentleman ;  that  is,  he  did  not  know 
how  to  wear  clothes,  perhaps  sat  at  times  in  shirt  sleeves,  tilted  back 
his  chair.  He  could  quote  neither  Latin  nor  Greek,  had  never 
traveled,  had  no  pedigree. 

The  Republican  press  took  up  the  gauntlet.  To  the  charge 
that  he  would  be  a  "nullity"  the  (New  York)  Tribune  replied: 

"A  man  who,  by  his  own  genius  and  force  of  character,  has 
raised  himself  from  being  a  penniless  and  uneducated  flatboatman 
on  the  Wabash  River  to  the  position  Mr.  Lincoln  now  occupies  is  not 
likely  to  be  a  nullity  anywhere,  " 

And  [William  Cullen]  Bryant  answered  all  the  sneering  by  a 
noble  editorial  [in  the  New  York  Evening  Post]  in  which  he 
claimed  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  "A  Real  Representative  Man.  " 

Nevertheless  the  eagerness  with  which  the  Republican  press 
hastened  to  show  that  Lincoln  was  not  the  coarse  backwoodsman 
the  Democrats  painted  him,  showed  how  much  they  winced  under 
the  charges.  Reporters  were  sent  West  to  describe  his  home,  his 
family,  and  his  habits,  in  order  to  prove  that  he  did  not  live  in  "  low 
Hoosier  style. "  They  told  with  great  satisfaction  that  he  wore 
daily   a  broadcloth  suit,    "almost  elegant;"  they  described  his 


334  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

modest  home  as  a  "  mansion"  and  "  an  elegant  two-story  dwelling," 
and  they  never  failed  to  note  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  spoke  French  fluently 
and  that  he  had  a  son  in  Harvard  College.  When  they  could  with 
reasonable  certainty  connect  him  with  the  Lincolns  of  Hingham, 
Mass.,  they  heralded  his  "good  blood"  with  pride  and  marshalled 
the  Lincolns  who  had  distinguished  themselves  in  the  history  of 
the  country. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  36s. 

"We  Are  Going  to  Have  Some  New  Clothes" 

From  the  time  of  his  nomination  gifts  poured  in  on  him.  Many 
of  these  came  in  the  form  of  wearing  apparel.  Mr.  George  Lincoln, 
of  Brooklyn,  who  in  January  carried  a  handsome  silk  hat  to  the 
President-elect,  the  gift  of  a  New  York  hatter,  says  that  in  receiving 
the  hat,  Mr.  Lincoln  laughed  heartily  over  the  gifts  of  clothing  and 
remarked  to  Mrs.  Lincoln : 

"Well,  wife,  if  nothing  else  comes  out  of  this  scrape,  we  are 
going  to  have  some  new  clothes,  are  we  not? " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  375. 

The  Wide-Awakes  of  i860 

The  Republican  campaign  of  i860  had  one  distinguishing 
feature, — the  Wide-Awakes,  bands  of  torch-bearers  who  in  a  simple 
uniform  of  glazed  cap  and  cape,  and  carrying  colored  lanterns  or 
blazing  coal-oil  torches,  paraded  the  streets.  ....  The  uniform 
attracted  so  much  attention  that  a  campaign  club  formed  in  Hart- 
ford adopted  it.  This  club  called  itself  the  Wide-Awakes.  Other 
clubs  took  up  the  idea,  and  soon  there  were  Wide-Awakes  drilling 
from  one  end  of  the  North  to  the  other. 

A  great  many  fantastic  movements  were  invented  by  them,  a 
favorite  one  being  a  peculiar  zig-zag  march — an  imitation  of  the 
party  emblem — the  rail  fence.  Numbers  of  the  clubs  adopted  the 
rules  and  drills  of  the  Chicago  Zouaves — one  of  the  most  popular 
military  organizations  of  the  day.  In  the  summer  of  1 860  Colonel 
Ellsworth,  the  commanding  officer  of  the  Zouaves,  brought  them 
East.  The  Wide-Awake  movement  was  greatly  stimulated  by  this 
tour  of  the  Zouaves. 

Many  of  the  clubs  owned  Lincoln  rails,    ,    ,    ,    .    .and  the 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT 


335 


"Originals,"  as  the  Hartford  Wide-Awakes  were  called,  possessed 
the  identical  maul  with  which  Lincoln  had  split  the  rails  for  the 
famous  fence It  is  still  to  be  seen  in  Hartford,  occu- 
pying a  conspicuous  place  in  the  collection  of  the  Connecticut  His- 
torical Society. 

Campaign  songs  set  to  familiar  airs  were  heard  on  every  hand. 
One  of  the  most  ringing  was  E.G.  Stedman's  "  Honest  Abe  of  the 
West,  "  sung  to  the  air  of  "The  Star  Spangled  Banner. " 

{Chorus.)  "  Hurrah!  for  our  cause — of  all  causes  the  best! 

Hurrah!  for  Old  Abe,  Honest  Abe  of  the  West!" 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  370. 

A  Newsboy's  Apology 

I  recall  one  day  when  he  had  just  seated  himself  at  a  desk 
with  the  latest  messages  before  him  when  he  heard  a  newsboy 
on  the  street  crying:  "Here's  yer  Philadelphia  Inquiry."  He 
mimicked  the  peculiar  pronunciation 
and  tone  of  the  boy,  and  then  said: 
"Did  I  ever  tell  you  of  the  joke  the 
Chicago  newsboys  had  on  me?"  Replying 
negatively,  he  related:  "A  short  time 
before  my  nomination  I  was  in  Chicago 
attending  a  law-suit.  A  photographer  of 
that  city  asked  me  to  sit  for  a  picture,  and 
I  did  so.  This  coarse,  rough  hair  of  mine 
was  in  a  particularly  bad  tousle  at  the 
time,  and  the  picture  presented  me  in 
all  its  fright.  After  my  nomination,  this 
being  about  the  only  picture  of  me  there 
was,  copies  were  struck  to  show  those 
who  had  never  seen  me  how  I  looked, 
them  around  to  sell,  and  had  for  their  cry:  'Here's  your  Old  Abe, 
he'll  look  better  when  he  gets  his  hair  combed. '  " 

Lincoln  in  the  War  Office,  Albert  B.  Chandler.     Collier's  for  February  9,  1907,  page  is. 


"Old  Abe,  he'll  look  better  when 
he  gets  his  hair  combed." 

The   newsboys   carried 


A  Call  on  Candidate  Lincoln 

In  the  summer  of  i860,  while  on  a  business  tour  of  the  West,  I 
visited  Springfield,  Illinois.     At  the  solicitation  of  a  mutual  friend 


336 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


I  was  taken  to  meet  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  had  recently  been  nomi- 
nated for  the  Presidency.  On  our  way  to  the  State  Capitol,  where 
Mr.  Lincoln  received  his  visitors,  I  asked  my  friend  if  Mr.  Lincoln 
really  was  the  author  of  the  many  current  stories  and  jokes  attrib- 
uted to  him.  He  said:  "  No,  many  of  them  are  coarse,  vulgar  and 
shallow ;  but  while  Mr.  Lincoln  is  fond  of  different  kinds  of  stories, 
they  must  have  wit  and  point  to  please  him.  " 

When  my  friend  and  I  were  announced  Mr.  Lincoln  promptly 
received  us.     At  our  introduction  he  gave  me  a  cordial  grasp  of  the 


THE  OLD  STATE  CAPITOL  OF  ILLINOIS 
Built  in  Springfield  after  the  removal  of  the  Capital  from  Vandalia,  largely  through  Lincoln's  influence. 
Here  he  received  his  visitors  while  Presidential  candidate  and  President-elect. 

hand,  and  I  seem  now,  after  many  years,  to  feel  the  loose  joints  of 
his  long  fingers.     He  said: 

"  I  am  glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Carr,  and  if  height  has  anything  in 
it  I  have  a  claim  on  your  vote.  " 

"If  the  St.  Louis  paper  tells  the  truth,  this  morning,  "  I  said, 
"  I  shall  certainly  have  to  vote  for  you.  " 

"  What  was  that? "  he  asked. 

"It  says,"  I  replied,  "that  you  are  called  'Honest  Abe'  to 
distinguish  you  from  the  rest  of  the  party!'' 

He  laughed  and  said,  "  That  Democratic  editor  is  a  good  friend 
of  mine,  but  he  i§  a  great  joker. " 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT 


337 


He  showed  us  a  "Presidential  Chair"  just  received,  of  which 
different  parts  bore  the  names  of  the  loyal  States  and  blanks  left  for 
those  in  doubt.  He  talked  freely  about  the  future  and  was  deeply 
interested  in  all  I  had  to  tell  him  of  my  observations  in  the  East  and 
South.  He  seemed  to  know  many  of  the  persons  whose  names  I 
mentioned  to  him.  He  expressed  keen  regrets  over  the  state  of 
affairs  in  the  South,  but  told  us  he  had  strong  faith  in  Providence 
and  the  loyalty  of  the  Northern  people. 

While  we  were  still  talking  I  noticed  that  he  kept  looking  me 
up  and  down  as  if  taking  a  mental  measurement.     At  last  he  asked, 

"  Mr.  Carr,  how  tall  are  you? " 

"Six  feet  two  and  a  half,"  I  replied.  "And  how  tall  are 
you,  Mr.  Lincoln?" 

He  straightened  up,  with  a  little  effort,  saying, 

"When  I  get  the  kinks  all  out  I  am  six  feet  four  inches.  Now, 
Mr.  Carr,  doesn't  that  entitle  me  to  your  vote?"  he  asked  with  a 
friendly  smile  as'  we  shook  hands  in  parting. 

I  did  vote  for  Lincoln — but  it  was  for  a  better  reason  than 
that. 

Related  by  Humphrey  W.  Carr,  Esq.,  Jersey  City,  N.  J. 

Lincoln-Hamlin  Anagrams 

In  the  campaign  the  names  of  the  candidates  were  sometimes 
arranged  thus: 

Ham     Lin 
Lin     Coin 
and 

A  hra-Hamlin-Coln 

Lincolnics ,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  95. 

The  Great  Springfield  Convention — "Our  Lincoln  Is  the  Man !" 

That  was  an  ever-to-be  remembered  day  when,  in  August,  i860, 
the  people  of  the  great  West,  with  one  accord,  arranged  to  visit 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  at  Springfield, 
Illinois.  Seventy  thousand  strangers  poured  into  the  prairie  city. 
They  came  from  Indiana,  Iowa,  and  the  lakes.  Thousands  came 
from  Chicago.  Men  came  in  wagons,  bringing  their  wives  and 
children.  They  brought  tents,  camp  kettles  and  coffee-pots.  Says 
a  graphic  writer  who  §aw  the  scene ; 

98 


338  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Every  road  leading  to  the  city  is  crowded  for  twenty  miles 
with  vehicles.  The  weather  is  fine,  and  a  little  overwarm.  Girls 
can  dress  in  white,  and  bare  their  arms  and  necks  without  danger, 
the  women  can  bring  their  children. 

"Everything  that  w^as  ever  done  at  any  othe/ mass-meeting 
is  done  here.  Locomotive-builders  are  making  a  boiler;  black- 
smiths are  heating  and  hammering  their  irons;  the  iron  founders 
are  molding  their  patterns ;  the  rail-splitters  are  showing  the  people 
how  'Uncle  Abe '  used  to  split  rails ;  every  other  town  has  its  wagon- 
load  of  thirty-two  girls  in  white  to  represent  the  States ;  many  bands 
of  music  are  playing;  old  men  of  the  War  of  1812,  with  their  old 
wives,  their  children,  grandchildren,  and  great-grandchildren,  are 
here :  making  a  procession  of  human  beings,  horses,  and  carriages 
not  less  than  ten  miles  in  length.  And  yet  the  procession  might 
have  left  the  town  and  the  people  would  scarcely  be  missed. 

"There  is  an  immense  wigwam,  with  galleries  like  a  theater; 
but  there  are  people  enough  not  in  the  procession  to  fill  a  dozen  like 
it.  Half  an  hour  is  long  enough  to  witness  the  moving  panorama  of 
men  and  women,  horses,  carriages,  representatives  of  trades,  mottoes 
and  burlesques,  and  listen  to  the  bands. " 

There  was  a  visitor  from  the  East  who  became  the  hero  of  the 
great  day He  had  brought  a  song  to  the  great  Spring- 
field assembly.  He  sang  it  when  the  people  were  in  a  receptive 
mood ;  it  voiced  their  hearts  and  its  influence  was  electric.  As  he 
rose  before  the  assembly  on  that  August  day,  under  the  prairie  sun 
and  sang — a  stillness  came  over  the  great  sea  of  the  people.  The 
figures  of  the  first  verse  filled  the  imagination,  but  the  chorus  was 
like  a  bugle-call: 

The  Ship  of  State. 

(Sung  at  the  Springfield  Convention.) 

"Hark!  hark!  a   signal   gun  is  heard, 

Just  out  beyond  the  fort; 
The  good  old  Ship  of  State,  my  boys, 

Is  coming  into  port 
With  shattered  sails  and  anchors  gone, 

I  fear  the  rogues  will  strand  her ; 
She  carries  now  a  sorry  crew, 

An^  needs  a  new  commander. 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  339 

Chorus 

"Our  Linccln  is  the  man! 
Our  Lincoln  is  the  man! 

With  a  sturdy  mate 

From  the  Pine-Tree  State, 
Our  Lincoln  is  the  man ! 

*'  We'll  give  her  what  repairs  she  needs — 

A  thorough  overhauling ; 
Her  sordid  crew  shall  be  dismissed 

To  seek  some  honest  calling. 
Brave  Lincoln  soon  shall  take  the  helm, 

On  truth  and  right  relying ; 
In  calm  or  storm,  in  peace  or  war. 

He'll  keep  her  colors  flying. 

Chorus 

"Old  Abram  is  the  man! 
Old  Abram  is  the  man! 

With  a  sturdy  mate 

From  the  Pine-Tree  State, 
Old  Abram  is  the  man!" 

These  words  seem  commonplace  to-day,  but  they  were  trumpet- 
notes  then.  "  Our  Lincoln  is  the  man!"  trembled  on  every  tongue, 
and  a  tumultuous  applause  arose  that  shook  the  air.  The  enthu- 
siasm grew ;  the  minstrel  had  voiced  the  people 

Lincoln  heard  the  song.  He  loved  songs.  One  of  his  fa- 
vorite songs  was  "  Twenty  Years  Ago. ' '     But  this  was  the  first  time, 

probably,  that  he  had  heard  himself   sung The   song 

delighted  him,  but  he,  of  all  the  thousands,  was  forbidden  by  his 

position  to  express  his  pleasure  in  the  song But  after 

the  scene  was  over,  and  the  great  mass  of  people  began  to  melt 
away,  he  sought  the  minstrel  and  said : 

"  Come  to  my  room  and  sing  me  the  song  privately.  /  want  to 
hear  you  sing  it." 

So  he  listened  to  it  in  private,  while  it  was  being  borne  over  the 
prairies  on  tens  of  thousands  of  lips.     Did  he  then  dream  that  the 


340  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

nations  would  one  day  sing  the  song  of  his  achievements,  that  his 
death  would  be  tolled  by  the  bells  of  all  lands,  and  his  dirge  fill  the 
churches  of  Christendom  with  tears?  It  may  have  been  that  his 
destiny  in  dim  outline  rose  before  him,  for  the  events  of  his  life  were 
hurrying. 

In  the  Boyhood  of  Lincoln,  Hezekiah  Butterworth,  page  252. 

"These  Men  WiU  Find  They  Have  Not  Read  Their  Bibles  Aright" 

Mr,  Newton  Bateman,  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction  for 
the  State  of  Illinois,  occupied  a  room  [in  the  State  Capitol]  adjoining 
and  opening  into  the  Executive  Chamber  [which  had  been  placed 
at  Mr.  Lincoln's  disposal].  Frequently  this  door  was  open  during 
Mr.  Lincoln's  receptions;  and  throughout  the  seven  months  or 
more  of  his  occupation,  Mr.  Bateman  saw  him  nearly  every  day. 
Often  when  Mr,  Lincoln  was  tired  he  closed  his  door  against  all 
intrusion,  and  called  Mr,  Bateman  into  his  room  for  a  quiet  talk. 

On  one  of  these  occasions  Mr.  Lincoln  took  up  a  book  contain- 
ing a  careful  canvass  of  the  city  of  Springfield  in  which  he  lived, 
showing  the  candidate  for  whom  each  citizen  had  declared  it  his 
intention  to  vote  in  the  approaching  election.  Mr.  Lincoln's 
friends  had,  doubtless  at  his  own  request,  placed  the  result  of  this 
canvass  in  his  hands.  It  was  toward  the  close  of  October,  and  only 
a  few  days  before  the  election.  Calling  Mr.  Bateman  to  a  seat  at 
his  side,  having  previously  locked  all  the  doors,  he  said : 

"  Let  us  look  over  this  book.  I  wish  particularly  to  see  how 
the  ministers  of  Springfield  are  going  to  vote.  " 

The  leaves  were  turned,  one  by  one,  and  as  the  names  were 
examined,  Mr.  Lincoln  frequently  asked  if  this  one  and  that  were  not 
a  minister,  or  an  elder,  or  the  member  of  such  or  such  a  church,  and 
sadly  expressed  his  surprise  on  receiving  an  affirmative  answer.  In 
that  manner  they  went  through  the  book,  and  then  he  closed  it  and 
sat  silently  for  some  minutes  regarding  a  memorandum  in  pencil 
which  lay  before  him.  At  length  he  turned  to  Mr.  Bateman  with 
a  face  full  of  sadness  and  said : 

"  Here  are  twenty -three  ministers  of  different  denominations, 
and  all  of  them  are  against  me  but  three ;  and  here  are  a  great  many 
prominent  members  of  the  churches,  a  very  large  majority  of  whom 
are  against  me.     Mr.  Bateman,  I  am  not  a  Christian — God  knows  I 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  ^i^t 


would  be  one — but  I  have  carefully  read  the  Bible,  and  I  do  not  so 
understand  this  book ;"  and  h^  drew  forth  from  his  bosom  a  pocket 
New  Testament. 

"  These  men  well  know, "  he  continued,  "  that  I  am  for  freedom 
in  the  Territories,  freedom  everywhere  as  far  as  the  Constitution 
and  laws  will  permit,  and  that  my  opponents  are  for  slavery.  They 
know  this,  and  yet,  with  this  book  in  their  hands,  in  the  light  of 
which  human  bondage  cannot  live  a  moment,  they  are  going  to  vote 
against  me.     I  do  not  understand  it  at  all. " 

Here  Mr.  Lincoln  paused — paused  for  long  minutes,  his  features 
surcharged  with  emotion.  Then  he  rose  and  walked  up  and  down 
the  room  in  the  effort  to  retain  or  regain  his  self-possession.  Stop- 
ping at  last,  he  said,  with  a  trembling  voice  and  his  cheeks  wet  with 
tears : 

"I  know  there  is  a  God,  and  that  He  hates  injustice  and 
slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming,  and  I  know  that  His  hand  is  in  it. 
If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me — and  I  think  He  has — I  believe 
I  am  ready.  I  am  nothing,  but  truth  is  everything.  I  know  I  am 
right  because  I  know  that  liberty  is  right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and 
Christ  is  God.  I  have  told  them  that  'a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand,'  and  Christ  and  reason  say  the  same;  and  they  will 
find  it  so.'  Douglas  don't  care  whether  slavery  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down,  but  God  cares,  and  humanity  cares,  and  I  care;  and  with 
God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I  may  not  see  the  end,  but  it  will  come, 
and  I  shall  be  vindicated ;  and  these  men  will  find  that  they  have 
not  read  their  Bibles  aright." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  J.  G.  Holland,  page  236. 

Election  Day  in  Springfield,  Illinois 

Election  day  in  i860  fell  on  the  6th Mr.  Lincoln,  as 

was  his  custom,  came  down  to  his  room  at  the  State  House  by  eight 
o'clock,  where  he  went  over  his  big  mail  as  coolly  as  if  it  were  not 
election  day  and  he  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States.  He  had  not  been  there  long  before  his  friends  began  to  flock 
in  in  such  numbers  that  it  was  proposed  that  the  doors  be  closed 
and  he  be  allowed  to  remain  by  himself,  but  he  said  he  had  never 
done  such  a  thing  in  his  life  as  to  close  the  door  on  his  friends  and 


342  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

that  he  did  not  intend  to  begin  now,  and  so  the  day  wore  away  in 
the  entertainment  of  visitors. 

It  had  not  been  Mr.  Lincoln's  intention  to  vote,  the  obstacle 
which  he  found  in  the  way  being  that  his  own  name  headed  the 
Republican  ticket  and  that  he  did  not  want  to  vote  for  himself. 
One  of  his  friends  suggested  that  his  name  might  be  cut  off  and  he 
vote  for  the  rest  of  the  ticket.  He  fell  in  with  this  suggestion,  and 
late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  crowd  around  the  polls,  which  were 
just  across  the  street  from  his  office,  had  subsided  somewhat,  he 
w^ent  over  to  cast  his  ballot.  He  was  recognized  immediately  and 
his  friends  were  soon  about  him,  cheering  wildly  and  contending 
good-naturedly  for  an  opportunity  to  shake  his  hand.  Even  the 
Democrats,  with  their  hands  full  of  documents  which  they  were 
distributing,  joined  in  this  enthusiastic  demonstration  and  cheered 
at  the  top  of  their  voices  for  their  beloved  townsman. 

No  returns  were  expected  before  seven  o'clock,  and  it  was  a 
little  later  than  that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  returned  from  his  supper  to 
the  State  House.     The  first  dispatches  were  from  different  parts  of 

Illinois After  an  hour  or  more  news  began  to  come  from 

Missouri. 

"  Now, "  said  Lincoln,  "  they  should  get  a  few  licks  back  at  us." 
But  to  everybody's  surprise  there  was  more  good  news  from 
Missouri  than  had  been  expected.  Towards  midnight  news  began 
to  come  from  Pennsylvania,  ....  then  a  telegram  from  Simon 
Cameron,  "  Pennsylvania  70,000  for  you.  New  York  safe.  Glory 
enough."   

While  waiting  anxiously  for  something  definite  from  New  York, 
a  delegation  of  Springfield  ladies  came  in  to  invite  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
his  friends  to  a  hall  near  by,  where  they  had  prepared  refreshments 
for  all  the  Republican  politicians  of  the  town.  The  party  had  not 
been  there  long  before  there  came  a  telegram  announcing  that  New 
York  City  had  gone  Republican.  Such  a  cheering  was  never 
heard  in  Springfield  before.  The  hall  full  of  people,  beside  them- 
selves with  joy,  began  a  romping  promenade  around  the  tables, 
singing  at  the  top  of  their  voices  the  popular  campaign  song: 

"Oh,  ain't  you  glad  you  joined  the  Republicans?" 

Here  at  intervals  further  telegrams  came  from  New  York,   all 
announcing  large  majorities.     The  scene  became  one  of  the  wildest 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  343 

excitement,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  friends  withdrew  to  a  httle 
telegraph  office  on  the  square,  where  they  could  receive  the  reports 
more  quietly. 

Up  to  this  time  the  only  anxiety  Mr.  Lincoln  had  shown  about 
the  election  was  in  the  returns  from  his  own  State  and  town.  He 
didn't  "  feel  quite  easy,  "  as  he  said,  "  about  Springfield. "  Towards 
morning,  however,  the  announcement  came  that  he  had  a  majority 
in  his  own  precinct.  Then  it  was  that  he  showed  the  first  emotion, 
a  jubilant  chuckle,  and  soon 


Maine  Prohibition  law  passed 1851 

Rise  of  the  American  or  "  Know-Nothing" 

party 1852 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  published 1852 

Pierce  made  President 1853 

Passage  of  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill 1854 

Struggle  begins    in  Kansas.     John  Brown  1855 

Rise  of  the  Republican  party 1856 

Buchanan  made  President '. 1857 

Business  panic      1857 

Lincoln-Douglas  Debates 1858 

Discovery   of  silver  in   Colorado,  and  pe- 
troleum in  Pennsylvania 1858  and  1859 

John  Brown's  raid  on  Harper's  Ferry  ....  1859 

Election  of  Abraham  Lincoln i860 

Secession  of  South  Carolina  (Dec.  20)..  . .  i860 


after  he  remarked  cheerfully 
to  his  friends,  that  he  "guessed 
he'd  go  home  now. "    .... 

But  Springfield  was  not 
content  to  go  home.  Cannon 
banged  until  daylight,  and  on 
every  street  corner  and  in 
every  alley  could  be  heard 
groups  of  men  shouting  at  the 
tops  of  their  voices, 

"Oh,  ain't  you  glad  you  joined  the  Republicans?" 

Twenty-four  hours  later  and  the  result  of  that  Tuesday's  work 
was  known.  Out  of  303  electoral  votes,  Lincoln  had  received  180. 
Of  the  popular  vote  he  had  received  1,866,452 — nearly  half  a  million 
over  Douglas,  a  million  over  Breckenridge,  a  million  and  a  quarter 
over  Bell.  It  was  a  victory,  but  there  were  facts  about  the  victory 
which  startled  the  thoughtful.  If  Lincoln  had  more  votes  than  any 
one  opposing  candidate,  they  together  had  nearly  a  million  over 
him.  Fifteen  States  of  the  Union  gave  him  no  electoral  votes,  and 
in  ten  States  he  had  not  received  a  single  popular  vote. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  384. 

"Mary,  Mary!  We  Are  Elected!" 

In  November,  on  the  day  of  the  election,  he  said  he  was  calm 
and  sure  of  the  result.  The  first  news  he  received,  mostly  from  New 
York,  was  unfavorable,  and  he  felt  a  little  discouraged.  Later  the 
dispatches  indicated  a  turn  in  the  tide,  and  when  he  learned  of  his 
election  he  said  his  heart  overflowed  with  thanksgiving  to  God  for 
His  providential  goodness  to  our  beloved  country.     He  continued : 


WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD 

LiDColn's  Secretary  of  State.  He  had  been  the  foremost  of  the  Republican  candidates  for  nomination 
to  the  Presidency,  having  been  for  many  years  a  political  leader.  Seward  began  by  attempting  to 
manage  the  Lincoln  Administration,  but  he  was  the  first  of  the  Cabinet  to  recognize  the  true  great- 
ness of  his  chief,  writing  to  his  wife:    '  The  President  is  the  best  of  us." 


(344) 


CANDIDATE  FOR  PRESIDENT  345 

"  I  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that  I  was  a  very  happy  man,  "  and 
he  added,  with  much  feeHng,  "who  could  help  being  so  under  such 
circumstances?"  He  then  said  that  "the  enthusiastic  greetings  of 
his  neighbors  and  friends  during  the  evening,  at  the  Club,  "  together 
with  the  numerous  telegrams  which  poured  in  upon  him,  "well-nigh 
upset  him  with  joy.  " 

At  a  late  hour  he  left  the  Club  rooms  and  went  home  to  talk  over 
matters  with  his  wife.  Before  going  to  the  Club  that  evening  to  get 
the  election  news  as  it  came  in,  he  said: 

"  I  told  my  wife  to  go  to  bed,  as  probably  I  should  not  be  back 
before  midnight.  When  at  about  twelve  o'clock  the  news  came 
informing  me  of  my  election,  I  said:  'Boys,  I  think  I  will  go  home 
now :  for  there  is  a  little  woman  there  who  would  like  to  hear 
the  news. '  The  Club  gave  me  three  rousing  cheers,  and  then 
I  left.  On  my  arrival  I  went  to  my  bedroom  and  found  my 
wife  sound  asleep.  I  gently  touched  her  shoulder  and  said 
'Mary;'  she  made  no  answer.  I  spoke  again,  a  little  louder, 
saying,  Mary,  Mary!  we  are  elected!'  Well,  ....  I  then  went 
to  bed,  but  before  I  went  to  sleep  I  selected  every  member  of  my 
Cabinet,  save  one.  I  determined  on  Seward  for  my  Secretary  of 
State,  Chase  for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Welles,  w^hose  acquaint- 
ance I  made  in  Hartford,  for  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  and  Blair  and 
others  for  the  other  positions My  Cabinet  was  sub- 
stantially fixed  upon  that  night.  I  wanted  Seward,  for  I  had  the 
highest  respect  for  him,  and  the  utmost  confidence  in  his  ability. 
I  wanted  Chase,  also ;  I  considered  him  one  of  the  ablest,  best  and 
most  reliable  men  in  the  country  and  a  good  representative  of  the 
progressive,  anti slavery  element  of  the  party." 

In  a  word,  he  said  he  "wanted  all  his  competitors  to  have  a 
place  in  his  Cabinet  in  order  to  create  harmony  in  the  party." 

Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  from  His  Associates,  Edited  by  William  Hayes  Ward.  Recollections, 
Henry  C.  Bowen,  page  31, 


CHAPTER  XIII 


As  President-Elect 

Begins  "  Cabinet  Making" 

Most  of  the  facts  in  relation  to  the  formation  of  the  Cabinet  1 

received  from  the 
mouth  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, who  had  ap- 
parently no  conceal- 
ments on  the  subject. 
On  the  day  of  the 
Presidential  election, 
November  6,  i860, 
he  said,  the  telegraph 
operator  at  Spring- 
field invited  him  to 
occupy  his  room  and 
obtain  intelligence  of 
the  result  as  it  was 
received.  About 
two  o'clock  on 
Wednesday  morning 
sufficient  information 
had  come  in  to  leave 
no  doubt  of  his  elec- 
tion.  He  then  re- 
tired, but  hardly  to 
sleep.  Although  fa- 
tigued and  exhausted, 
he  got  but  little  rest. 
Oppressed  with 
the  overw^helming  re- 
sponsibility that  was 
upon  him,  which  in 
the    excitement    of   the    campaign  he  had  not  fully  realized,    he 

(346) 


From  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Newspaper,  February  2,  1861. 
A  JOB  FOR  THE  NEW  CABINET-MAKER 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  347 

felt  the  necessity  of  relief  and  assurance  to  sustain  him  in  the  not 
distant  future.  He  did,  he  said,  what  probably  all  his  prede- 
cessors had  done — looked  about  him  at  once  for  men  on  whom  he 
could  depend,  and  who  would  be  his  support  in  the  trials  that 
were  before  him.  The  reliable  and  marked  men  of  the  country  were 
in  his  mind,  but  there  were  many  other  things  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration— different  influences,  sectional  and  political,  to  be  rec- 
onciled. He  did  not  again  sleep  until  he  had  constructed  the 
framework  of  his  Cabinet.  It  was  essentially  the  same  (Cabinet) 
as  that  with  which,  four  months  later,  he  commenced  his  adminis- 
tration  He  had  in  view  a  Republican,  not  a  Whig 

administration,  and  therefore  required  and  formed  a  Republican 

Cabinet 

The  unhappy  condition  of  the  country  during  the  winter  of  i860 
-6 1  is  not  to  be  overstated.  It  was  as  well  understood  and  as  deeply 
deplored  at  Springfield  .  .  .  as  at  Washington,  where  Congress 
frittered  away  its  time,  and  pursued  a  course  as,  and  scarcely  less 
reprehensible  than  the  Administration  which  proclaimed  its  inability 
to  coerce  a  State.  The  President-elect  witnessed  the  factious  and 
disunion  proceedings  with  unutterable  distress,  but  he  was  powerless. 

Lincoln  and  Seward,  Gideon  Welles,  page  37. 

Elected  but  Helpless 

Although  the  election  of  November  6th  made  Lincoln  the 
President-elect  of  the  United  States,  for  four  months  he  could 
exercise  no  direct  influence  on  the  affairs  of  the  country.  If  the 
South  tried  to  make  good  her  threat  to  secede  in  case  he  was  elected, 
he  could  do  nothing  to  restrain  her.  The  South  did  try,  and  at  once. 
With  the  very  election  returns  the  telegraph  brought  Lincoln  the 
news  of  disruption.  Day  by  day  the  news  continued,  and  always 
more  alarming.  On  November  loth,  the  United  States  Senator  from 
South  Carolina  resigned 

In  his  quiet  office  in  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln  read,  in  Janu- 
ary, reports  of  proceedings  of  conventions  ...  by  all  of  which 
ordinances  of  secession  were  adopted.  In  February  he  saw 
representatives  of  these  same  States  unite  in  a  general  convention 
at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  and  the  newspapers  told  him  how 
promptly  and  intelligently  they  went  to  work  to  found  a  new  nation, 


348  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  Southern  Confederacy,  to  provide  it  with  a  constitution  and  to 

give  it  officers 

The  rapid  disintegration  which  followed  the  election  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  filled  the  North  with  dismay.  There  was  a  general  demand 
for  some  compromise  which  would  reassure  the  South  and  stop 
secession.  It  was  the  place  of  the  Republicans,  the  conservatives 
argued,  to  make  this  compromise.  A  furious  clamor  broke  over 
Mr.  Lincoln's  head.  His  election  had  caused  the  trouble;  now 
what  would  he  do  to  quell  it?  How  much  of  the  Republican  plat- 
form would  he  give  up?  Among  the  newspapers  which  pleaded 
with  the  President-elect  to  do  something  to  reassure  the  South  the 
most  able  was  the  New  York  Herald.  Lincoln  was  a  "sectional 
President,"  declared  the  Herald,  who  out  of  4,700,000  votes  cast, 
had  received  but  1,850,000  and  whom  the  South  had  had  no  part 
in  electing. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  I,  page  387. 

Artemus  Ward  Visits  the  "President  Eleck" 

I  hav  no  politics.  Not  a  one.  I'm  not  in  the  business.  .  .  . 
I  wouldn't  giv  two  cents  to  be  a  congresser.  The  wuss  insult  I  ever 
received  was  when  sertin  citizens  of  Baldinsville  axed  me  to  run  fur 
the  Legislater.  Sez  I,  "  My  friends,  dostest  think  I'd  stoop  to  that 
there?"  They  turned  as  white  as  a  sheet.  I  spoke  in  my  most 
orfullest  tones ;  they  knowed  I  wasn't  to  be  trifled  with.  They 
slunked  out  of  site  to  onct. 

There4,  having  no  politics,  I  made  bold  to  visit  Old  Abe  at  his 
humstid  in  Springfield.  I  found  the  old  feller  in  his  parler  sur- 
rounded by  a  perfeck  swarm  of  orfice  seekers.  Knowin  he  had  been 
capting  of  a  fiatboat  on  the  roarin  Mississippy  I  thought  I'd  address 
him  in  sailor  lingo,  so  sez  I : 

"Old  Abe,  ahoy!  Let  out  yer  main-suls,  reef  hum  the  fore- 
castle &  throw  yer  jib-poop  overboard!  Shiver  my  timbers  my 
harty!"  (N.  B.  This  is  ginuine  mariner  langwidge.  I  know, 
because  I've  seen  sailor  plays  acted  out  by  them  New  York  theatre 
fellers.) 

Old  Abe  lookt  up  quite  cross  &  sez, 

"  Send  in  yer  petition  by  &  by.  I  can't  possibly  look  at  it  now. 
Indeed  I  can't.     It's  onpossible,  sir!" 

"Mr.  Linkin,  who  do  you  spect  I  air?"  sed  I. 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  349 

"A  orfice-seeker,  to  be  sure,  "  sed  he. 

"Wall,  sir,"  sed  I,  "you's  never  more  mistaken  in  your  life; 
you  haint  got  a  orfice  I'd  take  under  no  cirucmstances.  I'm  A. 
Ward.  Wax  figgers  is  my  perfeshun.  I'm  the  father  of  Twins, 
and  they  look  like  me — both  of  them.  I  come  to  pay  a  friendly  visit 
to  the  President  eleck  of  the  United  States.  If  so  be  you  wants  to 
see  me,  say  so,  if  not,  say  so  &  I'm  off  like  a  jug  handle. " 

"  Mr.  Ward,  sit  down.     I  am  glad  to  see  you,  sir.  " 

"  Repose  in  Abraham's  Buzzum ! "  said  one  of  the  orfice  seekers, 

his  idee  being  to  git  orf  a  goak  at  my  expense Jest 

at  this  pint  of  the  conversation  another  swarm  of  orfice-seekers 
arrove  &  cum  pilin  into  the  parler.  Sum  wanted  post  orfices,  sum 
wanted  collectorships,  sum  wanted  furrin  missions,  and  all  wanted 
sumthin.  I  thought  Old  Abe  would  go  crazy.  He  had'nt  more 
than  had  time  to  shake  hands  with  em  before  another  tremenjis 
crowd  cum  porein  onto  his  premises.  His  house  and  dooryard  was 
now  perfeckly  overflowed  with  orfice  seekers,  all  clameruss  for  a 
immejit  interview  with  Old  Abe.  One  man  from  Ohio,  who  had 
about  seven  inches  of  corn  whisky  into  him,  mistook  me  for  Old 
Abe  and  addrest  me  as  "The  Pra-hayrie  Flower  of  the  West!" 
Thinks  I  yon  want  a  orfiss  putty  bad.  Another  man  with  a  gold- 
heded  cane  and  a  red  nose  told  Old  Abe  he  was  "  a  seckind  Wash- 
ington &  the  Pride  of  the  BoimdHss  West. " 

Sez  I,  "Squire,  you  wouldn't  take  a  small  post-orfiss  if  you 
could  git  it,  would  you? " 

Sez  he,  "A  patrit  is  abuv  them  things,  sir!" 

"There's  a  putty  big  crop  of  patrits  this  season,  aint  there. 
Squire?"  sez  I,  when  awoi/i^r  crowd  of  orfiss  seekers  pored  in.  The 
house,  door-yard,  barns,  woodshed  was  now  all  full,  and  when 
another  crowd  cum  I  told  'em  not  to  go  away  for  want  of  room  as  the 
hog-pen  was  still  empty.  One  patrit  from  a  small  town  in  Michygan 
went  up  on  top  of  the  house,  got  into  the  chimney  and  slid  into  the 
parler  where  Old  Abe  was  endeverin  to  keep  the  hungry  pack  of 
orfice-seekers  from  chawin  him  up  alive  without  benefit  of  clergy. 
The  minit  he  reached  the  fireplace  he  jumpt  up,  brusht  the  soot  out 
his  eyes,  and  yelled: — 

"Don't  make  any  pintment  at  the  Spunk\'ille  postorfiss till 
you've  read  my  papers.  All  the  respectful  men  in  our  town  is 
signers  to  that  there  dockyment ! " 


350  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Good  God!"  cried  Old  Abe,  "they  cum  upon  me  from  the 
skize — down  the  chimneys  and  from  the  bowels  of  the  yerth!" 
He  hadn't  more'n  got  them  words  out  of  his  delikit  mouth  before 
two  fat  orfiss  seekers  from  Wisconsin,  in  endeverin  to  crawl  at  ween 
his  legs  for  the  purpuss  of  applyin  for  the  tollgateship  at  Milwawky, 
upsot  the  President  eleck,  &  he  would  hev  gone  sprawling  into  the 
fireplace  if  I  hadn't  caught  him  in  these  arms.  But  I  hadn't  more'n 
stood  him  up  strate  before  another  man  cum  crashing  down  the 
chimney,  his  head  strikin  me  viliently  again  the  inards  and  pros- 
tratin  my  voluptoous  form  onto  the  floor. 

"Mr.  Linkin, "  shouted  the  infatooated  being,  "my  papers  is 
signed  by  every  clergyman  in  our  town,  and  likewise  the  school- 
master!" 

Sez  I,  "You  egrejis  ass, "  gittin  up  and  brushin  the  dust  from 
my  eyes,  "I'll  sign  your  papers  with  this  bunch  of  bones,  if  you 
don't  be  a  little  more  keerful  how  you  make  my  bread  basket  a 
depot  in  the  future.  How  do  you  like  that  air  perfumery? "  sez  I, 
shoving  my  fist  under  his  nose.  "Them's  the  kind  of  papers  I'll 
giv  you !     Them's  the  papers  you  want ! ' ' 

"  But  I  workt  hard  for  the  ticket ;  I  toiled  night  and  day.  The 
patrit  should  be  rewarded.  " 

"Virtoo, "  sed  I,  holding  the  infatooated  man  by  the  coat- 
collar,  "virtoo,  sir,  is  its  own  reward.     Look  at  me!" 

He  did  look  at  me,  and  qualed  be4  my  gase. 

"  The  fact  is,  "  I  continued,  lookin '  round  on  the  hungry  crowd, 
"there  is  scarely  a  offiss  for  every  ile  lamp  carrid  round  durin' 
this  campane.  I  wish  there  was  furrin  missions  to  be  filled  on 
varis  lonely  islands  where  epydemics  rage  incessantly,  and  if  I  was 
in  Old  Abe's  place  I'd  send  every  mother's  son  of  you  to  them. 
What  air  you  here  for?"  I  continnered,  warmin  up  considerable, 
"can't  you  give  Abe  a  minit's  peace?  Don't  you  see  he's  worrid 
most  to  death?  Go  home,  you  miserable  men,  go  home  and  till  the 
/sile !  Go  to  peddlin  _  tinware — go  to  choppin  wood —  go  to  bilin ' 
sope — stuff  sassengers — ^black  boots — git  a  clerkship  on  some 
respectable  manure  cart — anything  for  a  honest  living,  but  don't 
come  round  here  drivin  Old  Abe  crazy  by  your  outrajis  cuttings 
up!  Go  home.  Stand  not  upon  the  order  of  your  goin,  but  go 
to  onct!  Ef  in  five  minits  from  this  time,"  sez  I,  pullin'  out 
my  new  sixteen   dollar  huntin   cased  watch  and  brandishin'  it 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  351 

before  their  eyes,  "  Ef  in  five  minits  from  this  time  a  single  sole 
of  you  remains  on  these  here  premises,  I'll  go  out  to  my  cage  near 
by,  and  let  my  Boy  Constructor  loose!  &  if  he  gits  amung  you, 
you'll  think  old  Solferino  has  cum  again  and  no  mistake!" 

You  ought  to  have  seen  them  scamper They  run  as 

tho  Satan  hisself  was  arter  them  with  a  red  hot  ten  pronged  pitch- 
fork.    In  five  minits  the  premises  was  clear. 

"How  kin  I  ever  repay  you,  Mr.  Ward,  for  your  kindness?" 
sed  Old  Abe,  advancin  and  shakin  me  warmly  by  the  hand.  "  How 
kin  I  ever  repay  you,  sir? " 

"By  givin'  the  whole  country  a  good,  sound  administration. 
By  poerin  ile  upon  troubled  waturs.  North  and  South.  By  pur- 
sooin '  a  patriotic,  firm,  and  just  course,  and  then  if  any  State  wants 
to  secede,  let  'em  secesh!" 

"  How  'bout  my  Cabinit,  Mister  Ward,  "  sed  Abe. 

"  Fill  it  up  with  showmen,  sir.  Showmen  is  devoid  of  politics. 
They  haint  got  any  principles.  They  know  how  to  cater  for  the 
public.  They  know  what  the  public  wants.  North  &  South.  Show- 
men, sir,  is  honest  men.  Ef  you  doubt  their  literary  ability,  look 
at  their  posters,  and  see  small  bills !  Ef  you  want  a  Cabinit  as  is  a 
Cabinit  fill  it  up  with  showmen,  but  don't  call  on  me.  The  moral 
wax  figger  perfeshun  mustn'  be  permitted  to  go  down  while  there's 
a  drop  of  blood  in  these  vains!  A.  Linkin,  I  wish  you  well!  Ef 
Powers  or  Walcott  was  to  pick  out  a  model  for  a  beautiful  man,  I 
scarcely  think  they'd  sculp  you ;  but  ef  you  do  the  fair  thing  by  your 
country  you'll  make  as  putty  a  angel  as  any  of  us!  A.  Linkin,  use 
the  talents  which  Nature  has  put  into  you  judishusly,  and  firmly, 
and  all  will  be  well !     A.  Linkin,  adoo ! " 

He  shook  me  cordyully  by  the  hand — ^we  exchanged  picters, 
so  we  could  gaze  upon  each  other's  liniments,  when  far  away  from 
one  another — he  at  the  helium  of  the  ship  of  State,  and  I  at  the 
helium  of  the  show  bizniss — admittance  only  1 5  cents.. 

Complete  Works  of  Artetfuts  Ward,  page  loo. 

Daily  '^Levees"  of  the  President-Elect 

Mr,  Lincoln  soon  foimd,  after  his  election,  that  his  modest  two- 
story  frame  dwelling  was  altogether  inadequate  for  the  throng  of 
local  callers  and  of  visitors  from  a  distance,  and  accordingly  he  gladly 


3S2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

availed  himself  of  the  offer  of  the  use  of  the  Governor's  room  in  the 
Capitol  building.  On  my  arrival,  he  had  already  commenced 
spending  a  good  part  of  each  day  in  it.  He  appeared  daily  except 
Sundays,  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock,  and  held  a  reception  till 
noon,  to  which  all  comers  were  admitted,  without  even  the  formality 
of  first  sending  in  cards.  Whoever  chose  to  call,  received  a  hearty 
greeting.  At  noon,  he  went  home  to  dinner  and  reappeared  about 
two.  Then  his  correspondence  was  given  proper  attention,  and 
visitors  of  distinction  were  seen  by  special  appointment  at  either 
the  State  house  or  the  hotel.  Occasionally,  but  very  rarely,  he 
passed  some  time  in  his  law  office.  In  the  evening,  old  friends 
called  at  his  home  for  the  exchange  of  news  and  political  views.  At 
times,  when  important  news  was  expected,  he  would  go  to  the  tele- 
graph or  newspaper  office  after  supper,  and  stay  there  till  late. 
Altogether,  probably  no  other  President-elect  was  as  approachable 
for  everybody,  at  least  during  the  first  weeks  of  my  stay.  But  he 
found  in  the  end,  as  was  to  be  expected,  that  this  popular  practice 
involved  a  good  deal  of  fatigue,  and  that  he  needed  more  time  for 
himself;  and  the  hours  he  gave  up  to  the  public  were  gradually 
restricted. 

I  was  present  almost  daily  for  more  or  less  time  during  his 
morning  receptions.  I  generally  remained  a  silent  listener,  as  I 
could  get  at  him  at  other  hours  when  I  was  in  need  of  information. 
It  was  a  most  interesting  study  to  watch  the  manner  of  his  inter- 
course with  callers.  As  a  rule,  he  showed  remarkable  tact  in  dealing 
with  each  of  them,  whether  they  were  rough-looking  Sangamon 
County  farmers  still  addressing  him  familiarly  as  "Abe,  "  sleek  and 
pert  commercial  travelers,  staid  merchants,  sharp  politicians, 
or  preachers,  lawyers,  or  other  professional  men.  He  showed  a 
very  shrewd  and  quick  perception  of  and  adaptation  to  individual 
characteristics  and  peculiarities.  He  never  evaded  a  proper  ques- 
tion, or  failed  to  give  a  fit  answer.  He  was  ever  ready  for  an  argu- 
ment, which  always  had  an  original  flavor,  and,  as  a  rule,  he  got 
the  better  in  the  discussion.  There  was,  however,  one  limitation  to 
the  freedom  of  his  talks  with  his  visitors.  A  great  many  of  them 
naturally  tried  to  draw  him  out  as  to  his  futiore  policy  as  President 
regarding  the  secession  movement  in  the  South,  but  he  would  not 
commit  himself.  The  most  remarkable  and  attractive  feature  of 
those  daily  "levees,"  however,  was  his  constant  indulgence  of  his 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  353 


story-telling  propensity.  Of  course,  all  the  visitors  had  heard  of 
it  and  were  eager  for  the  privilege  of  listening  to  a  practical  illustra- 
tion of  his  pre-eminence  in  that  line.  He  knew  this  and  took 
especial  delight  in  meeting  their  wishes.  He  never  was  at  a  loss 
for  a  story  or  an  anecdote  to  explain  a  meaning  or  enforce  a  point, 
the  aptness  of  which  was  always  perfect.  His  supply  was  ap- 
parently inexhaustible,  and  the  stories  sounded  so  real  that  it  was 
hard  to  determine  whether  he  repeated  what  he  had  heard  from, 
others,  or  had  invented  himself. 

Memoirs  of  Henry  Villard,  Vol.  i,  page  142. 

An  Optical  Omen 

He  related  an  incident  which  I  will  try  to  put  on  paper  here,  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  his  own  words : — 

"  It  was  just  after  my  election  in  i860,  when  the  news  had  been 
coming  in  thick  and  fast  all  day,  and  there  had  been  a  great  'Hur- 
rah boys!'  so  that  I  was  well  tired  out,  and  went  home  to  rest, 
throwing  myself  down  on  a  lounge  in  my  chamber.  Opposite 
where  I  lay  was  a  bureau— (and  here  he  got  up  and  placed  the  furni- 
ture to  illustrate  the  position) — "  and,  looking  in  that  glass,  I  saw 
myself  reflected,  nearly  at  full  length;  but  my  face,  I  noticed,  had 
two  separate  and  distinct  images,  the  top  of  the  nose  of  one  being 
about  three  inches  from  the  top  of  the  other.  I  was  a  little  bothered, 
perhaps  startled,  and  got  up  and  looked  in  the  glass,  but  the  illusion 
vanished.  On  lying  down  again  I  saw  it  a  second  time — plainer 
if  possible  than  before;  and  then  I  noticed  that  one  of  the  faces 
was  a  little  paler,  say  five  shades,  than  the  other.  I  got  up  and  the 
thing  melted  away,  and  I  went  off  and,  in  the  excitement  of  the 
hour,  forgot  all  about  it — nearly,  but  not  quite,  for  the  thing  would 
once  in  a  while  come  up  and  give  me  a  little  pang,  as  though  some- 
thing uncomfortable  had  happened.  When  I  went  home  again  that 
night  I  told  my  wife  about  it,  and  a  few  days  afterward  I  tried  the 
experiment  again,  when,  sure  enough,  the  thing  came  again ;  but  I 
never  succeeded  in  bringing  the  ghost  back  after  that,  though  I 
once  tried  very  industriously  to  show  it  to  my  wife,  who  was  some- 
what worried  about  it.  She  thought  it  was  a  '  sign '  that  I  was  to  be 
elected  to  a  second  term  of  ofTfice,  and  that  the  paleness  of  one  of  the 
faces  was  an  omen  that  I  should  not  see  life  through  the  last  term. " 

Washington  in  Liticoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  220, 
sa 


354  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

A  Hard  Time  of  It  with  the  Office-Seekers 

The  Jacksonian  "doctrine"  that  "to  the  victors  belong  the 
spoils, "  was  still  so  universally  the  creed  of  all  politicians  that  it 
was  taken  for  granted  there  would  be  a  change  not  only  in  all  the 
principal,  but  also  in  all  the  minor,  Federal  offices.  It  was  also 
expected  that  the  other  time-honored  party  practice  of  a  division 
of  executive  patronage  among  the  several  States  would  be  carried 
out.  Accordingly,  there  appeared  deputations  from  all  the  North- 
em  and  Border  States  at  Springfield  to  put  in  their  respective  claims 
for  recognition.     Some  of  them  came  not  only  once,  but  several 

times Almost  every  State  presented  candidates  for  the 

Cabinet  and  for  the  principal  diplomatic  and  departmental  offices. 
The  hotel  was  the  principal  haunt  of  the  place-hunters.  The  tricks, 
the  intrigues  and  the  manoeuvres  that  were  practised  by  them  in 
pursuit  of  their  aims,  came  nearly  all  within  the  range  of  my  obser- 
vation, as  it  was  my  duty  to  furnish  the  earliest  possible  news  of 
their  success  or  failure 

From  what  I  have  said,  it  will  be  understood  that  the  President- 
elect had  2,  hard  time  of  it  with  the  office-seekers.  But  as  he  him- 
self was  a  thorough  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  rotation  in  office,  he 
felt  it  his  duty  to  submit  to  this  tribulation.  The  Cabinet  appoint- 
ments ....  were  especially  troublesome  to  him.  There  w^as 
an  intense  struggle  between  Indiana  and  Illinois,  most  embarrassing 
inasmuch  as  there  were  several  candidates  from  his  own  State,  all 
intimate  personal  friends.  Then  came  the  bitter  contest  between 
the  Border  States  of  Kentucky,  Missouri  and  Maryland,  and  the 
Pennsylvania  cabal  pro  and  contra  Simon  Cameron.  Amid  all  these 
perplexities,  Lincoln  displayed  a  good  deal  of  patience  and  shrewdness 
in  dealing  with  these  personal  problems.  His  never-failing  stories 
helped  many  times  to  heal  wounded  feelings  and  mitigate  disap- 
pointments. But  he  gradually  showed  the  wear  and  tear  of  these 
continuous  visitations,  and  finally  looked  so  careworn  as  to  excite 
one's  compassion. 

Memoirs  of  Henry  Villard,  Vol.  I,  page  146, 

A  Little  Girl  Induces  Mr.  Lincoln  to  Grow  a  Beard 

Little  Grace  Bedell,  living  at  Westfield,  New  York,  saw  a  por- 
crait  of  Lincoln  during  the  Presidential  campaign  of  i860.     She 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT 


355 


said  to  her  mother,  "I  think  Mr.  Lincoln  would  look  better  if  he 
wore  whiskers  and  I'm  going  to  write  and  tell  him  so.  " 

Grace's  father  was  a  Republican,  but  her  two  brothers  were 
Democrats.  She  wrote  to  "Hon.  Abraham  Lincoln,  Esq.,"  and 
told  him  how  old  she  was ;  where  she  lived ;  that  she  was  a  Republi- 
jCan ;  that  she  thought  he  would  make  a  good  President,  but  would 
look  better  if  he  let  his  beard  grow.  If  he  would  do  this,  she  would 
try  to  coax  her  brothers  to  vote  for  him.  She  said  she  thought  the 
rail  fence  around  his  cabin,  in  the  picture,  was  very  pretty  and 
wound  up  with: 

"  If  you  have  not  time  to  answer  my  letter,  will  you  allow  your 
little  girl  to  reply  for  you? " 

Lincoln  was  pleased  with  the  letter  and  answered  it  at  once, 
as  follows : 

'iSpRiNGFiELD,  111.,  October  19,  i860. 
"Miss  Grace  Bedell: 

"Ady  dear  little  Miss: — Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  15th 
is  received.  I  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  I  have  no  daughter. 
I  have  three  sons ;  one  seventeen ;  one  nine ;  and  one  seven  years  of 
age.  They,  with  their  mother,  constitute  my  whole  family.  As  to 
whiskers,  having  never  worn  any,  do  you  not  think  people  would 
call  it  a  piece  of  silly  affectation  if  I  should  begin  now? 

"  Your  very  sincere  well-wisher, 

"A,  Lincoln." 

When  on  the  journey  to  Washington  to  be  inaugurated,  the 
train  stopped  at  Westfield.  He  spoke  to  ex-Lieutenant-Governor 
Patterson,  who  accompanied  the  Presidential  party,  about  his  little 
correspondent  in  that  place.  Some  one  called  out  and  asked  if 
Grace  Bedell  was  in  the  crowd  that  surged  around  the  train.  A  way 
was  opened  and  Grace  came,  timidly  but  gladly,  to  speak  to  the 
President-elect  who  let  her  see  that  he  had  grown  a  beard  at  her 
request.  Then  reaching  his  long  arms,  he  lifted  the  little  girl  up 
and  kissed  her,  amid  enthusiastic  applause  from  the  approving 
multitude." 

"Abe  Lincoln's  Yams  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  382. 


356  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

How  Lincoln  Chose  a  Secretary 

When  I  was  editor  of  a  weekly  paper  in  Illinois,  in  the  late 
fifties,  I  felt  a  great  interest  in  a  Springfield  lawyer  and  ex-congress- 
man named  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  had  heard  him  speak  several 
times.  There  was  something  in  the  man  that  commanded  instant 
attention,  and  every  time  you  saw  or  heard  him  your  respect  in- 
creased. 

Everybody  was  talking  about  the  coming  nomination  for  the 
Presidency,  and  one  day  I  dashed  off  a  little  editorial  suggesting 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  had  experience  at  Washington  as  a  repre- 
sentative, was  able  and  fearless,  and  would  be  a  good  man  to  lead 
the  nation  in  the  crisis  that  we  all  could  see  impending.  On  reading 
what  I  had  written,  before  giving  it  to  the  printer,  I  felt  that  the 
idea  was  such  a  good  one  as  to  be  worth  circulating  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  the  rather  limited  clientele  of  my  own  paper.  I  had  two 
hundred  and  fifty  proofs  pulled,  one  of  which  I  sent  to  each  of  the 
papers  in  Illinois.  Many  of  them  printed  it  when  I  did,  and  thus 
we  started  the  Presidential  boom  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

During  the  campaign  I  supported  him  with  all  the  strength  of 
my  pen  and  tongue,  but  had  received  no  recognition  from  him; 
and,  when  I  dropped  in  to  see  him,  at  vSpringfield,  to  pay  my  respects 
after  his  election,  I  had  no  confidence  that  he  would  know  anything 
about  me.  He  put  out  his  long  arm  and  gave  me  a  pump-handle 
shake,  exclaiming: 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you,  young  man.  I  rather  suspect  that  you 
are  one  of  my  good  friends.     Isn't  it  so? "     I  assured  him  it  was. 

"Why,  of  course  it  is,"  he  said  heartily.  "I  know  that,  per- 
haps better  than  you  guess.  How  would  you  like  to  go  to  Wash- 
ington?" 

The  suddenness  of  this  proposal  took  my  breath  away.  "Why, 
,why,  I  am  pretty  well  satisfied  where  I  am,  Mr.  Lincoln, "  I  answered 
hesitatingly;  "but,  if  I  could  go  on  your  personal  staff,  I — " 

"Now,  that's  a  compliment,"  he  interrupted,  laughing,  "but 
it  happens  to  be  just  what  I  was  thinking  of.  Go  home  and  write 
me  a  letter,  so  that  we  can  get  this  thing  down  in  black  and  white. " 

I  went  home  and  wrote  the  letter,  and,  in  a  day  or  two,  received 
Mr.  Lincoln's  reply,  appointing  me  one  of  his  private  secretaries. 
In  this  offhand  way  he  reshaped  my  life. 

Success  Magazine,  William  O.  Stoddard,  February,  1906. 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  357 

Trade  Reasons  against  Civil  War 

Meanwhile,  sundry  well-intentioned  men  were  doing  what  they 
thought  best  to  counteract  the  wave  of  hostility  that  had  begun  to 

rise  in,  the  North A  Peace  Congress  assembled  in 

Washington  to  concert  measures  for  the  averting  of  war.  Union 
meetings  were  held  in  New  York  and  other  large  cities  in  the  free 
States,  everybody  being  desirous,  apparently,  of  doing  whatever 
could  reasonably  be  done,  to  pacify  the  South,  angry  at  the  election 
of  a  "sectional"  candidate 

It  should  be  said,  also,  that  in  communities  where  the  trade 
and  commerce  of  the  Southern  people  had  been  large,  there  was 
something  like  a  panic  at  the  near  prospect  of  a  war  with  the  slave 
States.  Cotton,  that  great  staple  of  the  Gulf  States,  was  one  of  the 
great  needs  of  the  manufacturing  States  of  the  North.  The 
Southern  States  did  not  manufacture  any  goods,  and  their  depend- 
ence on  the  North  was  also  one  reason  why  these  latter  should  not 
go  to  war.  Thus  the  desire  in  the  North  for  peace  was  natural 
and  strong. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  218. 

News  Item  from  the  Springfield  State  Journal 

"An  old  man  hailing  from  Mississippi,  dressed  in  plain  home- 
spun, came  to  our  city  Saturday.  He  mingled  freely  with  the  Re- 
publican representatives,  got  their  views,  and  seemed  to  think  we  are 
not  quite  so  black  as  we  are  represented. 

"  He  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  talked  freely  with  him  and  heard 
the  President-elect  express  his  sentiments  and  intentions.  He 
learned  that  Mr.  Lincoln  entertained  none  but  the  kindest  feelings 
towards  the  people  of  the  South,  and  that  he  would  protect  the  South 
in  her  just  rights. 

"  He  had  a  long  conversation  and  went  away  delighted.  He 
left  the  office  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  company  with  a  friend,  who  com- 
municated this  to  us,  and  when  outside  the  door  he  remarked,  while 
the  tears  stole  down  his  furrowed  cheeks : 

"  'Oh !  if  the  people  of  the  South  could  hear  what  I  have  heard, 
they  would  love  and  not  hate  Mr.  Lincoln :  I  will  tell  my  friends  at 
home;  but, '  he  added  sorrowfully,  'they  will  not  believe  me. ' 

"  He  said  that  he  did  wish  every  man  in  the  South  could  be 
personally  acquainted  with  Mr.  Lincoln." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  133. 


358 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


How  Buchanan's  Cabinet  Planned  to  Wreck  the  Government 

Meanwhile,  the  allies  of  treason  and  rebellion  in  the  Cabinet 
were  doing  what  they  could  to  make  things  easier  for  the  Rebel 
States  when  the  final  blow  should  come.  John  B.  Fioyd,  a 
Southern  man,  was  Secretary  of  War,  and  he  scattered  the  army  all 
over  the  South,    ,    ...   so  that  it  should  not  be  at  hand  when  the 

President  should  come 
to  the  national  Capital. 
Floyd  also  moved  large 
quantities  of  arms  and 
munitions  of  war  from 
the  forts  and  arsenals 
of  the  North  to  those 
in  the  South. 

Mr.  Isaac  Toucey,  a 
Northern  man,  but  com- 
pletely in  the  hands  of 
the  conspirators,  sent 
the  little  navy  of  the 
United  States  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the 
globe,  so  that  no  naval 
force  should  be  availa- 
ble when  the  conspiracy 
should  be  ripe. 

Howell  Cobb,  of 
Georgia,  afterwards  a 
general  in  the  Rebel 
army,  was  then  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury, 
and  after  he  had  pur- 
posely involved  the 
national  finances  in  dif- 
ficulty, he  resigned.     He  left  the  treasury  empty. 

Attorney-General  Black  had  given  his  official  opinion  that 
neither  Congress  nor  the  President  could  carry  on  any  war  against 
any  State. 

James  Buchanan,  a  weak  old  man,  was  nominally  President, 


^^^^^  ^ 

^^m''^^ 

■Cj^^H 

JAMES  BUCHANAN 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  359 

but  the  conspirators  in  the  Cabinet  carried  forward  their  plans  with 
a  high  hand The  Southern  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives, almost  without  exception,  remained  in  Washington,  occupy- 
ing their  desks  in  the  Senate  and  House,  drawing  pay  and  official 
perquisites  up  to  the  last  moment;  and,  holding  possession  of  the 
Government  as  these  men  did,  they  were  at  the  same  time  plotting 
to  overthrow  it. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  212. 

The  Duty  of  the  President  "to  Run  the  Machine  as  It  Is" 

The  uproar  which  raged  about  Mr.  Lincoln  soon  became  quite 
as  loud  over  "coercion"  as  over  "compromise."  Each  passing 
week  made  conciliation  more  difficult,  saw  new  elements  of  disunion 
realized.  What  was  to  be  done  with  the  seceding  States .?  What 
was  to  be  done  about  the  forts  and  arsenals,  custom-houses  and  post- 
offices,  they  were  seizing?  If  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  compromise, 
was  he  going  to  let  the  States  and  the  Federal  property  go,  or  was  he 
going  to  compel  them  to  return  with  it?  Did  he  propose  to  coerce 
the  South?  Though  the  President-elect  refused  to  give  any  expres- 
sion of  opinion  on  the  subject  to  the  country,  it  was  not  because  he 
was  not  perfectly  clear  in  his  own  mind.  Secession  he  considered 
impossible. 

"My  opinion  is,"  he  wrote  Thurlow  Weed  on  December  17th, 
"  that  no  State  can  in  any  way  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union  without 
the  consent  of  the  others ;  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President 
and  other  government  functionaries  to  run  the  machine  as  it  is." 

When  Horace  Greeley  began  a  series  of  editorials  in  the  (New 
York)  Tribune  contending  that  if  seven  or  eight  States  sent  agents  to 
Washington,  saying,  "  We  want  to  get  out  of  the  Union,  "  he  should 
feel  constrained  by  his  devotion  to  Human  Liberty  to  say,  "  Let 
them  go,"  Lincoln  said  nothing  publicly,  though  in  Springfield  it 
was  believed  that  he  considered  the  policy  "  dangerous  and  illogical. " 
He  certainly  was  only  amused  at  Fernando  Wood's  scheme  to  take 
New  York  City  out  of  the  Union  and  make  it  a  free  city — another 
Hamburg. 

"  I  reckon,  "  he  said  to  a  New  Yorker  in  February,  in  discussing 
the  subject,  "that  it  will  be  some  time  before  the  front  door  sets  up 
house -keeping  on  its  own  account.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell.  Vol.  I,  page  395. 


36o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Latitude  and  Longitude,"  "Socks  and  Flapjacks" 

"  'Think  he  was  a  big  man,  then? '  Nope — never  did.  Just  as 
I  said,  we  all  thought  Douglas  was  our  big  man.  You  know  I  felt 
kind  of  sorry  for  Lincoln  when  they  began  to  talk  about  him  for 
President.  It  seemed  almost  as  if  somebody  was  makin '  fun  of  him. 
He  didn't  look  like  a  President.  I  never  had  seen  one,  but  we  had 
pictures  of  'em  from  George  Washington  down,  and  they  looked 

somehow  as  if  they  were  different  kind  of  timber  from  us 

Now  Mr.  Lincoln  he  was  just  like  your  own  folks — no  trouble  to  talk 
to  him,  no  siree 

"None  of  us  around  town  took  much  stock  in  his  bein '  elected 
at  first — that  is,  none  of  the  men ;  the  women  was  different.  They 
always  believed  in  him,  and  used  to  say : 

*'  'You  mark  my  word,  Mr.  Lincoln  will  be  President.  He's 
just  made  for  it,  he's  good,  he's  the  best  man  ever  lived  and  he  ought 
to  be  President. ' 

"  It  seems  all  right  now,  though.     I  reckon  I  learned  somethin ' 

watchin '  him Funniest  thing  to  see  him  goin '  around  in 

this  town — not  a  mite  changed — and  the  whole  United  States  a 
watchin '  him  and  the  biggest  men  in  the  country  runnin '  after  him 
and  the  reporters  hangin '  around  to  talk  to  him  and  fellers  makin ' 
his  pictures  in  ile  and  every  other  way.  That  didn't  make  no  differ- 
ence to  him He  had  a  room  over  there  in  the  Court- 

House — room  on  that  corner  there.  I  never  looked  up  that  it 
wan't  chuck  full  of  people  wantin'  him.  This  old  town  was  full  of 
people  all  the  time — delegations  and  committees  and  politicians 
and  newspaper  men 

' '  He  saw  'em  all.  Sometimes  I  used  to  step  over  and  watch  him 
— didn't  bother  him  a  mite  to  see  a  big  man — not  a  mite.  He'd 
jest  shake  hands  and  talk  as  easy  and  natural  as  if  'twas  me — and 

he  didn't  do  no  struttin'  either Mr.  Lincoln  didn't  put 

on  any  airs.  No,  sir,  and  he  didn't  cut  any  of  his  old  friends  either. 
Tickled  to  death  to  see  'em  every  time,  and  they  all  come — blamed  if 
every  old  man  and  woman  in  Sangamon  County  didn't  trot  up  here 
to  see  him.  They'd  all  knowed  him  when  he  was  keepin '  store  down 
to  New  Salem  and  swingin '  a  chain — surveyed  lots  o'  their  towns  for 
'em — he  had — and  then  he'd  electioneered  all  over  that  county,  too, 
so  they  just  come  in  droves  to  bid  him  good-by. 


As  PRESIDENT-ELECT  361 

"  I  was  over  there  one  day  when  old  Aunt  Sally  Lowdy  came  in 
the  door.  Aunt  Sally  lived  down  near  New  Salem  and  I  expect 
she'd  mended  Mr.  Lincoln's  pants  many  a  time;  for  all  them  old 
women  down  there  just  doted  on  him  and  took  care  of  him  as  if  he 
was  their  own  boy.  Well,  Aunt  Sally  stood  lookin '  kind  a  scared 
seein '  so  many  strangers  and  not  knowin'  precisely  what  to  do,  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  spied  her.  Quick  as  a  wink  he  said,  'Excuse  me,  gen- 
tlemen,' and  he  just  rushed  over  to  that  old  woman  and  shook 
hands  with  both  of  his'n  and  says: 

"  'Now,  Aunt  Sally,  this  is  real  kind  of  you  to  come  and  see 
me.  How  are  you  and  how's  Jake?'  (Jake  w^as  her  boy.)  'Come 
right  over  here. ' 

"And  he  led  her  over,  as  if  she  was  the  biggest  lady  in  Illinois 
and  says: 

"  'Gentlemen,  this  is  a  good  old  friend  of  mine.  She  can  make 
the  best  flapjacks  you  ever  tasted,  and  she's  baked  'em  for  me  many 
a  time.' 

"Aunt  Sally  was  jest  as  pink  as  a  rosy,  she  was  so  tickled. 
And  she  says: 

"  'Abe,    ....     I  had  to  come  and  say  good-by 

I  thought  I'd  come  and  bring  you  a  present.     Knit  'em  myself.' 

"  And  I'll  be  blamed  if  that  old  lady  didn  't  pull  out  a  great  big 
pair  of  yarn  socks  and  hand  'em  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"  Well,  sir,  it  was  the  funniest  thing  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln's  face 
pucker  up  and  his  eyes  twinkle  and  tw^inkle.  He  took  them  socks 
and  held  'em  up  by  the  toes,  one  in  each  hand.  They  was  the  long- 
est socks  I  ever  see. 

"  'The  lady  got  my  latitude  and  longitude  'bout  right,  didn't 
she,  gentlemen?'  he  says,  and  then  he  laid  'em  down  and  he  took 
Aunt  Sally's  hand  and  he  says,  tender-like: 

"  'Aunt  Sally,  you  couldn't  a  done  nothin'  which  would  have 
pleased  me  better.  I'll  take  'em  to  Washington  and  wear  'em,  and 
think  of  you  when  I  do  it. '      .    .    . 

"And  I  declare  he  said  it  so  first  thing  I  knew  I  was  almost 
blubberin',  and  I  wan't  the  only  one  nuther,  and  I  bet  he  did  wear 
'em  in  Washington.  I  can  jest  see  him  pullin'  off  his  shoe  and 
showin'  them  socks  to  Sumner  or  Seward  or  some  other  big  bug 
that  was  botherin '  him,  when  he  wanted  to  switch  off  on  another 


362  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

subject  and  tellin'  'em  the  story  about  Aunt  Sally  and  her  flap- 
jacks." 

He  Knew  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  13. 

Correspondence  with  Alexander  H.  Stephens  of  Georgia 

In  his  private  correspondence  Stephens  spoke  of  receiving  a 
large  number  of  letters  from  the  Northern  States  discussing  his 

anti-secession  speech,  nearly  all  of  them  favorable One 

of  the  letters  was  from  President-elect  Lincoln  asking  for  a  revised 
copy  of  the  speech.  Stephens  replied  saying  that  his  revision 
amounted  to  no  more  than  a  glance  over  the  reporters'  notes,  which 
were  substantially  correct.  Ever  since  they  had  been  Whigs  to- 
gether in  the  House  in  the  forties,  Lincoln  had  admired  Stephens, 
and  it  is  even  said  that  he  now  considered  the  advisability  of  inviting 
him  to  become  a  member  of  his  Cabinet.  In  view  of  Lincoln's 
position  and  that  of  Stephens  on  the  slavery  question,  the  story  is 
doubtful 

Shortly  after  Stephens's  reply  to  Lincoln's  request — a  reply  in 
which  he  spoke  of  the  countr^^'s  "great  peril,"  and  declared  that 
"  no  man  ever  had  heavier  or  greater  responsibilities  than  you  have 
in  the  present  momentous  crisis," — Lincoln  wrote  as  follows: 

''For  your  eye  only. 

"Springfield,  111.,  Dec.  22,  i860. 
"Hon.  a.  H.  Stephens. 

''My  dear  Sir: — Your  obliging  answer  to  my  short  note  is  just 
received,  and  for  which  please  accept  my  thanks.  I  fully  appreciate 
the  present  peril  the  country  is  in,  and  the  weight  of  responsibility 
on  me. 

' '  Do  the  people  of  the  South  really  entertain  fears  that  a  Re- 
publican administration  would  directly  or  indirectly  interfere  with  the 
slaves  or  with  them  about  the  slaves?  If  they  do,  I  wish  to  assure 
you,  as  once  a  friend,  and  still,  I  hope,  not  an  enemy,  that  there  is  no 
cause  for  such  fears. 

"The  South  would  be  in  no  more  danger  in  this  respect  than  it 
was  in  the  days  of  Washington.  I  suppose,  however,  that  does 
not  meet  the  case.  You  think  slavery  is  right  and  ought  to  be  ex- 
tended ;  while  we  think  it  is  wrong  and  ought  to  be  abolished.     That, 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  363 


I  suppose,  is  the  rub.     It  certainly  is  the  only  substantial  difference 
between  us.  "  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Louis  Pendleton,  page  164. 

The  Three  Staunch  Democrats  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet 

Some  of  the  Northern  Democrats  who  had  stood  by  Buchanan 
and  his  party  until  now,  began  to  murmur  at  his  supple  willingness 
to  help  the  cause  of  Rebellion,  now  assuming  formidable  propor- 
tions. Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  State,  resigned  because  the  Presi- 
dent refused  to  send  reinforcements  to  Major  Anderson,  who  was 
shut  up  wdth  a  little  force  in  Fort  Moultrie,  Charleston  Harbor.    .    . 

Mr.  Black,  too,  resigned  and  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  a  staunch 
Democrat  and  Unionist,  was  appointed  in  his  place. 

General  John  A,  Dix,  of  New  York,  succeeded  Howell  Cobb  as 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  It  was  this  unflinching  Union  man  who, 
while  in  the  Cabinet  of  Buchanan,  sent  to  the  commander  of  a 
threatened  revenue  cutter  the  famous  despatch : 

"If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  American  flag,  shoot 
him  on  the  spot.  " 

Joseph  Holt  of  Kentucky,  also  a  strong  Union  man,  took  the 
office  of  Secretary  of  War,  made  vacant  by  Floyd,  who  had  added 
official  dishonesty  to  treason. 

Stanton,  in  the  Attorney-General's  office,  was  a  very  different 
sort  of  man  from  Black,  who  had  retired  to  Pennsylvania.  The 
infamous  Jacob  Thompson,  who  kept  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  for  the  purpose,  apparently,  of  helping  his  fellow-con- 
spirators in  the  slave  States,  advised  a  surrender  of  the  forts  in 
Charleston  Harbor  and  the  withdrawal  of  Major  Anderson  and  his 
little  force.     Stanton  said  to  the  President : 

"  Mr,  President,  it  is  my  duty,  as  your  legal  adviser,  to  say  that 
you  have  no  right  to  give  up  the  property  of  the  Government  or 
abandon  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States  to  its  enemies;  and  the 
course  proposed  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  if  followed,  is 
treason,  and  will  involve  you  and  all  concerned  in  treason.  " 

For  the  first  time  treason  had  been  called  by  its  right  name  in 
the  Cabinet  councils  of  James  Buchanan.  It  was  none  too  soon. 
The  traitors  saw  that  their  work  in  Washington  must  close ;  the 


364  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

times  were  ripe  for  open  revolt;  and  while  some  waited  until  the 
open  secession  of  their  States  called  them  home,  others  hastened 
southwards,  eagerly  taking  part  in  what  they  fondly  deemed  to  be 
the  formation  of  a  new  and  prosperous  Confederacy. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  213. 

Seven  Southern  Sisters  Secede 

It  is  not  correct  to  say  that  the  election  of  Lincoln  was  the 
cause  of  the  Rebellion ;  it  was  rather  the  signal.  To  the  Southern 
leaders,  it  was  the  striking  of  the  appointed  hour.  His  defeat 
would  have  meant  only  postponement.  South  Carolina  led  the 
way.  On  December  17,  i860,  her  convention  came  together,  the 
Palmetto  flag  waving  over  its  chamber  of  conference,  and  on 
December  20  it  issued  its  "Ordinance."  This  declared  that  the 
Ordinance  of  May  23,  1788,  ratifying  the  Constitution,  is  "hereby 
repealed,  "  and  the  "  Union  now  subsisting  between  South  Carolina 
and  other  States,  under  the  name  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
is  hereby  dissolved." 

A  Declaration  of  Causes  said  that  South  Carolina  had  "  resumed 
her  position  among  the  nations  of  the  world  as  a  separate  and 
independent  State." 

The  language  used  was  appropriate  for  the  revocation  of  a 
power-of-attorney.  The  people  hailed  this  action  with  noisy  joy, 
unaccompanied  by  any  regret  or  solemnity  at  the  severance  of  the 
old  relationship.  The  newspapers  at  once  began  to  publish  "  For- 
eign News ' '  from  the  other  States. 

The  new  governor,  a  fiery  Secessionist,  .  .  .  had  already 
suggested  to  Mr.  Buchanan  the  impropriety  of  reinforcing  the 
national  garrisons  in  the  forts  in  Charleston  Harbor.  He  now 
accredited  to  the  President  three  commissioners  to  treat  with  him 
for  the  delivery  of  the  "  forts,  magazines,  lighthouses,  and  other 
real  estate,  with  their  appurtenances,  in  the  limits  of  South  Carolina ; 
and  also  for  the  apportionment  of  public  debt,  and  for  a  division 
of  all  other  property  held  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
as  agents  of  the  Confederate  States  of  which  South  Carolina  was 
recently  a  member.  " 

Meanwhile  there  was  in  the  Harbor  of  Charleston  a  sort  of 
armed  truce,  which  might  at  any  moment  break  into  war.  Major 
Anderson,  in  Fort  Moultrie,  and  the  State  commander  in  the  city 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT 


365 


watched  each  other  hke  two  suspicious  animals,  neither  sure  when 
the  other  will  spring. 

In  short,  in  all  the  overt  acts,  the  demeanor  and  the  language 
of  this  excitable  State,  there  was  such  insolence,  besides  hostility, 
that  her  emissaries  must  have  been  surprised  at  the  urbane  cour- 
tesy with  W'hich  they  were  received,  even  by  a  President  of  Mr. 
Buchanan's  view^s. 

After  the  secession  of  South  Carolina  the  Gulf  States  hesitated 
briefly.  Mississippi  followed  first;  her  convention  assembled 
January  7,  1861,  and  on  January  9 
passed  the  Ordinance.  The  Florida 
convention  met  January  3,  and  on 
January  10  decreed  the  State  to  be  "a 
sovereign  and  independent  nation." 
.    ,    The  Alabama  convention  passed 

its  Ordinance  on  January  II 

In  Georgia  the  secessionists  doubted 
whether  they  could  control  a  conven- 
tion, yet  felt  obliged  to  call  one, 
Toombs,  Cobb,  and  Iverson  labored 
w4th  tireless  zeal  throughout  the  State  ; 
but,  in  spite  of  all  their  proselytizing, 
Unionist  feeling  ran  high  and  debate 
w^as  hot.  .  .  .  Alexander  H.  Stephens 
spoke  for  the  Union  w4th  a  warmth  and 
logic  not  surpassed  by  anything  that 
was  said  at  the  North.  He  and  Her- 
schel  V.  Johnson  both  voted  against 
secession;   yet,   on  January   18,  when 

the  vote  was  taken,  it  showed  208  ayes  against  89  nays.  On  Jan- 
uary 26  Louisiana  followed;  .  .  .  but  it  refused  to  submit  the 
Ordinance  to  the  people  for  ratification. 

The  action  of  Texas,  the  only  other  State  which  seceded  prior 
to  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln,  was  delayed  until  February  i. 
There  Governor  Houston  was  opposing  secession  with  such  vigor  as 
remained  to  a  broken  old  man,  whereby  he  provoked  Senator 
Iverson  to  utter  the  threat  of  assassination:  "Some  Texan  Brutus 
may  arise  to  rid  his  country  of  this  old  hoary -headed  traitor.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln,  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  Vol.  I,  page  184. 


366  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

A  Stormy  Session  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet 

One  day,  Secretary  Stanton  referred  to  the  meeting  of  the 
Buchanan  Cabinet  called  upon  receipt  of  the  news  that  Major 
Anderson  had  evacuated  Fort  Moultrie,  and  gone  to  Fort  Sumter. 

"This  little  incident,"  said  Stanton,  "was  the  crisis  of  our 
history, — the  pivot  upon  which  everything  turned.  Had  he 
remained  at  Fort  Moultrie,  a  very  different  combination  of  circum- 
stances would  have  arisen.  The  attack  on  Sumter — commenced  by 
the  South — united  the  North  and  made  the  success  of  the  Confed- 
eracy impossible.  I  shall  never  forget,  "  he  continued,  "  our  coming 
together  by  special  summons  that  night,  Buchanan  sat  in  his  arm- 
chair in  a  corner  of  the  room,  white  as  a  sheet,  w^th  a  cigar  in  his 
mouth.  The  despatches  were  laid  before  us ;  and  so  much  violence 
ensued  that  he  had  to  turn  us  all  out-of-doors. " 

Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  54. 

Why  Did  the  South  Secede? 

What  took  these  seven  States — soon  to  be  followed  by  four 
more — out  of  the  Union?  The  answer  is,  it  was  their  first  convic- 
tion that  slavery  would  thrive  better  by  being  separated  from  the 
influence  of  the  North;  and,  secondly,  it  was  their  belief  in  "States 
Rights,"  upheld  by  South  Carolina  as  far  back  as  Jackson's  Presi- 
dency. According  to  that  idea,  any  State  was  justified  in  sepa- 
rating itself  from  the  United  States  whenever  it  became  convinced 
that  it  was  for  its  interest  to  withdraw. 

In  this  act  of  secession  many  of  the  people  of  the  South  took  no 
direct  part, — a  large  number  being,  in  fact,  opposed  to  it, — a  few 
political  leaders  did  the  chief  part  of  the  work.  Their  aim  was  to 
establish  a  great  slave-holding  republic,  or  nationality,  of  which 
they  should  be  head. 

President  Buchanan  made  no  attempt  to  prevent  the  States 
from  seceding ;  part  of  his  Cabinet  were  Southern  men,  w^ho  were  in 
full  sympathy  with  the  Southern  leaders,  and  the  President  did  not 
see  how  to  act. 

The  seceded  States  seized  the  forts,  arsenals,  and  other  national 
property  within  their  limits,  so  far  as  they  could  do  so.  Fort  Sumter, 
commanded  by 'Major  Anderson  of  the  United  States  army  in 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT 


367 


Charleston  Harbor,  was  one  of  the  few  where  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
remained  fly- 
ing. President 
Buchanan  had 
made  an  at- 
tempt to  send 
men  and  sup- 
plies to  Major 
Anderson  by 
the  merchant 
steamer  Star  of 
the  West  (Janu- 
ary 9,  1861) ; 
but  the  people 
of  Charleston 
fired  upon  the 
steamer  and 
compelled  her  to 
go  back. 

All  eyes 
were  now  turned 
toward  Abra- 
ham Lincoln. 
The  great  ques- 
tion was,  What 
will  he  do  when 
he  becomes 
President  ? 

The  Leading  Facts  of  American  History,  D.  H.  Montgomery,  page  282. 

Says  Farewell  to  His  Old  Stepmother  and  Visits  His  Father's  Grave 

And  now  he  began  to  think  very  tenderly  of  his  friends  and 
relatives  in  Coles  County,  especially  of  his  good  stepmother  and  her 
daughters.  By  the  first  of  February  he  concluded  that  he  could 
not  leave  his  home  to  assume  the  vast  responsibilities  that  awaited 
him  without  making  them  a  visit.  Accordingly,  he  left  Springfield 
on  the  first  day  of  that  month,  and  went  straight  to  Charleston.  . .  . 
Early  the  next  morning  he  repaired  to  his  cousin,  Dennis  Hanks; 
9,nd  jolly  old  friend  Dennis  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  a  grand 


JEFFERSON  DAVIS 


(3  63  J 


AS  PRESIDENT-ELECT  369 


"levee  "  under  his  own  roof.  It  was  all  very  pleasant  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  see  such  multitudes  of  familiar  faces,  smiling  upon  his  wonderful 
successes.  But  the  chief  object  of  his  solicitude  was  not  here, 
Mrs.  Lincoln  lived  in  the  southern  part  of  the  county,  and  he  was 
all  impatience  to  see  her.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  he  had  taken  a 
frugal  breakfast  with  Dennis,  he  and  Colonel  Chapman  started  off  in 
a  two-horse  buggy  toward  Farmington,  where  his  stepmother  was 
living  with  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Moore.  They  had  much  difficulty  in 
crossing  the  Kickapoo  River,  which  was  running  full  of  ice;  but 
they  finally  made  the  dangerous  passage,  and  arrived  at  Farmington 
in  safety. 

The  meeting  between  him  and  the  old  lady  was  of  a  most 
affectionate  and  tender  character.     She  fondled  him  as  her  own 

"Abe,"   and   he    her   as    his  own   mother The  parting 

between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  mother  was  very  touching.  She  em- 
braced him  with  deep  emotion,  and  said  she  was  sure  she  would 
never  behold  him  again,  for  she  felt  that  his  enemies  would  assassi- 
nate him.     He  replied : 

"No,  no.  Mother;  they  will  not  do  that.  Trust  in  the  Lord 
and  all  will  be  well;  we  will  see  each  other  again."  .  .  .  Then  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  Colonel  Chapman  drove  to  the  house  of  John  Hall, 
who  lived  on  the  old  Lincoln  farm  where  Abe  split  the  celebrated 
rails  and  fenced  in  the  little  clearing  in  1830.  Thence  they  went  to 
the  spot  where  old  Tom  Lincoln  was  buried.  The  grave  was  un- 
marked and  utterly  neglected.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  he  wanted  to 
"have  it  enclosed  and  a  suitable  tombstone  erected." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  page  462. 

"Buchanan  is  Giving  the  Case  Away  and  I  Can't  Stop  Him" 

Even  after  the  contest  was  over  and  he  was  implored  to  say 
something  to  reassure  the  seceding  South,  he  resisted  the  temptation 
to  interfere  with  his  predecessor's  administration,  knowing  full  well 
that  his  advice  would  be  disregarded  and  that  it  was  hopeless  to  try 
to  save  the  situation  with  words  alone. 

It  reminded  him,  he  said,  of  one  of  his  experiences  on  the  circuit 
when  he  saw  a  lawyer  making  frantic  signals  to  head  off  an  associate 
who  was  making  blundering  admissions  to  the  jury,  and  who  con- 

?4 


370  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

tinued  utterly  oblivious  of  the  efforts  which  were  being  made  to 
check  his  ruinous  work. 

"  Now,  that's  the  way  with  Buchanan  and  me, "  was  his  only 
comment.     "  He's  giving  the  case  away  and  I  can't  stop  him.  " 

As  the  time  for  action  drew  near  and  Lincoln  was  on  the  eve 
of  departure  for  Washington,  he  visited  his  law  office  to  attend  to 
some  business  matters. 

"After  all  these  things  were  disposed  of,"  relates  Mr.  Hemdon, 
"  he  crossed  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  room  and  threw  himself  down 
on  the  old  ofBce  sofa,  which  after  many  years  of  service  had  been 
moved  against  the  wall  for  support.  He  lay  there  for  some  mo- 
ments, his  face  toward  the  ceiling,  without  either  of  us  speaking. 
He  then  recalled  some  incidents  of  his  early  practice 
and  took  great  pleasure  in  delineating  the  ludicrous  features  of 
many  a  lawsuit  on  the  circuit 

"  Then  he  gathered  up  a  bundle  of  books  and  papers  he  wished 
to  take  with  him,  and  started  to  go,  but  before  leaving  he  made  the 
strange  request  that  the  sign-board  which  swung  on  its  rusty  hinges 
at  the  foot  of  the  stain\'ay  should  remain. 

"'Let  it  hang  there  undisturbed,'  he  said,  with  a  significant 
lowering  of  his  voice.     'Give  our  clients  to  understand  that  the 
election  of  a  President  makes  no  difference  in  the  firm. 
If  I  live  I'm  coming  back  some  time,  and  then  we'll  go  right  on 
practising  law  as  if  nothing  had  ever  happened. '      .      .      . 

"  He  lingered  for  a  moment  as  if  to  take  a  last  look  at  the  old 
quarters,  and  then  passed  into  the  narrow  hall-way. " 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  2qo. 


From   TIte  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

LINCOLN  IN  186/ 

The  President-elect  sat  for  this  photograph  in  his  inauguration  clothes  not  long 
before  leaving  for  Washington. 


(371) 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Journey  to  Washington 

Farewell  to  Springfield  Friends 

The  start  on  the  memorable  journey  was  made  shortly  after 
eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Monday,  February  ii.  It  was  a 
clear,  crisp  winter  day.  Only  about  one  hundred  people,  mostly 
personal  friends,  were  assembled  at  the  station  to  shake  hands  for 
the  last   time   with  their   distinguished   townsman.     It   was   not 


RAILROAD   STATION  WHERE  LINCOLN  SAID  GOOD-BYE  TO  SPRINGFIELD 

strange  that  he  yielded  to  the  sad  feelings  which  must  have  moved 
him  at  the  thought  of  what  lay  behind  and  what  was  before  him, 
and  gave  them  utterance  in  a  pathetic  formal  farewell  to  the  gather- 
ing crowd,  as  follows: 

"  My  Friends, — No  one  not  in  my  position  can  appreciate  the 
sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting.  To  this  people  I  owe  all  that  I  am. 
Here  I   have  lived  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century ;  here  my  chil- 

(372) 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  373 

dren  were  born,  and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  I  know  not  how 
soon  I  shall  see  you  again.  A  duty  devolves  upon  me  which  is, 
perhaps,  greater  than  that  which  has  devolved  upon  any  other  man 
since  the  days  of  Washington.  He  would  never  have  succeeded 
except  for  the  aid  of  Divine  Providence,  upon  which  he  at  all  times 
relied.  I  feel  that  I  cannot  succeed  without  the  same  Divine  aid 
which  sustained  him,  and  in  the  same  Almighty  Being  I  place  my 
reliance  for  support ;  and  I  hope  you,  my  friends,  will  all  pray  that 
I  may  receive  that  Divine  assistance,  without  which  I  cannot  suc- 
ceed, but  with  which  success  is  certain.  Again  I  bid  you  all  an 
affectionate  farewell. " 

I  reproduce  this  here,  as  but  for  me  it  would  not  have  been 
preserved  in  the  exact  form  in  which  it  was  delivered.  It  was 
entirely  extemporized,  and,  knowing  this,  I  prevailed  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln  immediately  after  starting,  to  write  it  out  for  me  on  a 
"pad.  "     I  sent  it  over  the  wires  from  the  first  telegraph  station. 

Memoirs  of  Henry  Villard,  Vol.  I,  page  149. 

On  the  Way  to  Washington — as  Far  as  Indianapolis 

As  the  train  which  bore  Mr.  Lincoln  went  whirling  and  shriek- 
ing through  the  country ,  people  everywhere  assembled  at  the  rail- 
road stations.  The  ladies  and  girls  waved  their  handkerchiefs  and 
threw  bouquets  into  the  cars,  and  the  men  and  boys  shouted  for 
"Lincoln  and  the  Constitution"  at  the  top  of  their  voices.  Wher- 
ever the  cars  stopped  long  enough,  Mr.  Lincoln  would  make  his 
appearance  and  say  a  few  kind  and  pleasant  words,  and  at  places 
w^here  he  remained  for  several  hours  he  sometimes  made  speeches  of 
considerable  length.  At  little  villages,  where  the  train  only  paused 
for  a  moment,  he  replied  with  bows  and  pleasant  smiles  to  the 
greetings  which  everywhere  met  him 

At  Tolono,  amid  deafening  applause,  he  said: 

"  I  am  leaving  you  on  an  errand  of  national  importance, 
attended,  as  you  are  aware,  with  considerable  difficulties.  Let  us 
believe,  as  some  poet  has  expressed  it : 

"  'Behind  the  cloud  the  sun  is  still  shining.* 

"I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell," 


374  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

At  Indianapolis  Mr.  Lincoln  found  the  Governor  of  the  State 
waiting  for  him  in  his  carriage.  The  whole  city  had  turned  out  to 
do  Mr.  Lincoln  honor,  and  he  was  escorted  to  the  Bates  House  in 
splendid  style.  In  his  address  to  the  people  from  the  balcony  of 
the  hotel,  he  said : 

"  To  the  salvation  of  the  Union  there  needs  but  one  thing, — the 
hearts  of  a  people  like  yours.  Of  the  people,  when  they  rise  in  mass 
in  behalf  of  the  Union  and  the  liberties  of  their  country, — truly  ma}^ 
it  be  said : 

"  'The  gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail  against  them.'  " 

The  Children's  Lije  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  112. 

At  Cincinnati,  Columbus,  Pittsburg  and  Cleveland 

At  Cincinnati  Mr.  Lincoln's  reception  was  almost  overwhelm- 
ing.   .    .    ...    .    He  remained  at  Cincinnati  till  the  next  morning, 

when  he  set  off  for  Columbus,  the  capital  of  the  State,  attended 

by  a  portion  of  the  Ohio  Legislature Upon  their  arrival 

Mr.    Lincoln  was  greeted  by  the   Lieutenant-Governor. 
To  the  Legislature  he  said : 

"  There  has  fallen  upon  me  a  task  such  as  did  not  rest  even  upon 
the  Father  of  his  Country;  and  so  feeling,  I  cannot  but  turn  and 
look  for  the  support  without  which  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to 
perform  that  great  task.  I  turn,  then,  and  Igok  to  the  great  Ameri- 
can people,  and  to  that  God  who  has  never  forsaken  them.  " .    .    .    . 

The  following  morning  Mr.  Lincoln  left  Columbus,  .  .  .  and 
in  the  evening  reached  Pittsburg,  where  he  was  met,  as  usual,  by  a 

crowd  of  enthusiastic  admirers In  the  morning  he  was 

waited  upon  by  the  Mayor  and  Common  Council  of  the  city,  to 
whom,  after  an  address  of  welcome  on  their  part,  he  said,  referring 
to  the  tariff : 

"  The  tariff  is  a  question  of  national  housekeeping.  It  is 
to  the  Government  what  replenishing  the  meal  tub  is  to  the 
family." 

From  Pittsburg  he  went  to  Cleveland.     Here  the  shouts  and 

cheers  of  the  people  blended  with  the  thunders  of  cannon 

Mr.  Lincoln  said,  in  closing: 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  375 

"  If  all  do  not  join  now  to  save  the  good  old  Ship  of  the  Union 
on  this  voyage,  nobody  will  have  a  chance  to  pilot  her  on  another 
voyage." 

The  Children  s  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  113. 

Lincoln  and  the  Coal-heaver 

When  Lincoln  was  on  his  way  to  assume  the  office  of  President, 
the  train  was  delayed  at  Freedom,  Pennsylvania,  by  an  accident  to  a 
freight  train  that  was  a  little  way  ahead,  and,  while  he  was  there,  I 
saw  him  again.  Some  things  happened  that  I  have  never  seen  in 
print.  He  was  accompanied  by  Major  Sumner,  whom  I  knew  as 
commander  of  the  United  States  troops  in  Kansas,  in  1856,  and 
Colonel  Elmer  Ellsw^orth,  of  the  celebrated  regiment  of  Zouaves. 
Neither  Major  Sumner  nor  Colonel  Ellsworth  was  tall,  and,  as  they 
stood  beside  Lincoln  on  the  rear  platform,  while  he  made  his  ad- 
dress, they  looked  shorter  than  they  really  were.  At  the  close  of 
Lincoln's  short  speech,  a  coal-heaver  called  out: 

"  Abe,  they  say  you  are  the  tallest  man  in  the  United  States, 
but  I  don't  believe  you  are  any  taller  than  I  am."     Lincoln  replied : 

"Come  up  here  and  let  us  measure." 

The  coal-heaver  pressed  his  way  through  the  crowd  and  climbed 
on  the  platform,  where  Lincoln  and  he  stood  back  to  back.  Turn- 
ing to  Colonel  Ellsworth,  Lincoln  said : 

"Which  is  the  taller?" 

.  Colonel  Ellsworth,  being  so  much  shorter,  could  not  tell,  so  he 
climbed  on  the  guard  rail,  and,  putting  his  hand  across  the  top  of  the 
heads  of  the  two  men,  said:  "I  believe  that  they  are  exactly  the 
same  height."  Then  Lincoln  and  the  coal-heaver  turned  around 
and  faced  each  other.  The  crowd  shouted  loudly  when  Lincoln  took 
the*black,  sooty  hand  of  the  coal-heaver  in  his  and  gave  a  hearty 
hand-shake  to  the  man  who  was  his  equal — in  height. 

Personal  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Thomas  H.  Tibbies.    Success  Magazine, "Vol,  IX,  Feb- 
ruary, 1906,  page  137. 

Gives  Tad  a  "Good  Spanking" 

The  car  in  which  the  party  was  riding  was  an  ordinary  passenger 
car  of  those  days.  No  one  would  submit  to  riding  in  such  a  car 
now.     Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  children  were  in  the  car.     She  sat  on 


376  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  side  next  the  platform  and  did  not  seem  to  notice  anything  that 
was  going  on.  There  was  a  small  boy  in  the  seat  with  her  who 
became  known  as  "Tad, "  in  after  years.  He  was  full  of  mischief. 
He  raised  the  car  window  an  inch  or  two  and  tried  to  catch  the 
fingers  of  the  boys  outside  as  they  stuck  them  under,  by  slamming  it 
down.  When  Lincoln  went  back  into  the  car  he  told  Tad  to  stop 
that,  but  in  a  few  minutes  the  boy  was  at  the  same  trick  again. 
Lincoln  spoke  to  him  the  second  time.  The  boy  obeyed,  but  was 
soon  at  the  same  old  trick  again.  Lincoln  leaned  over,  drew  the 
boy  across  his  knee,  and  gave  him  a  good  spanking,  saying ; 

"Why  do  you  want  to  mash  those  boys'  fingers?" 

After  a  while  the  wreck  ahead  was  cleared  away  and  the  train 
piilled  out.  Lincoln  came  to  the  rear  platform  and  acknowledged 
the  shouts  of  the  people  as  the  train  passed  betw^een  them.  A  man 
standing  near  me  said : 

"  He  is  not  the  kind  of  man  that  I  expected  to  see,  except  that 
he  is  tall.  I  expected  to  see  a  jolly -looking  man.  While  he  sat  in 
the  car  I  watched  him  through  a  window.  He  looked  sad  enough 
to  be  going  to  his  death  instead  of  to  be  inaugurated  President  of 
the  United  States. " 

Personal  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Thomas  H.  Tibbies.   Success  Magazine, Vol.  IX,  Febru- 
ary, 1906,  page  137. 

New  York  State  and  City 

The  next  morning  Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  departure  for  Buffalo, 
where  he  remained  over  Sunday,  and  on  Monday  morning  left  for 
Rochester,  at  which  place  he  spoke  a  few  words  to  the  assembled 
crowd At  Syracuse  the  people  had  erected  a  very  hand- 
some platform  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  stand  upon  while  he  addressed 
them;  but  there  was  not  time  for  him  to  ascend  it.  He  said  a  few 
kind  words  to  them,  however,  and  then  proceeded  to  Utica.  Here 
the  train  paused  only  a  few  moments,  and  then  sped  on  to  Albany, 
where  a  great  procession  escorted  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  State  House.   . 

Mr.  Lincoln  next  passed  on  to  Troy,  where  he  thanked  the 
people  very  kindly  for  their  great  reception.  At  Hudson  he  spoke 
a  few  words,  but  had  not  time  to  ascend  the  beautiful  platform 
which  they  had  erected  for  him.  At  Poughkeepsie  great  honors 
were  showered  on  him,  and  at  Peekskill 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  377 

Mr,  Lincoln  now  proceeded  to  New  York,  where  he  arrived  at 
three  in  the  afternoon.  Business  was  suspended  and  all  Broadway- 
was  crammed  with  the  immense  throng  which  tried  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  future  President,  as  he  was  being  escorted  to  the 
Astor  House.  Mr.  Lincoln  stepped  upon  the  balcony  of  the  hotel, 
and  showed  himself  to  the  excited  multitude,  who  kept  calling  for 
him ;  but  he  was  too  tired  to  make  a  speech. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  117. 

At  Trenton,  New  Jersey 

At  Trenton  he  was  received  by  a  portion  of  the  Legislature 
and  escorted  to  the  State  House.     Here  he  said  : 

"May  I  be  pardoned  if  upon  this  occasion  I  mention  that 
away  back  in  my  childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my  being  able  to 
read,  I  got  hold  of  a  small  book,  .  .  .  Weems's  '  Life  of  Wash- 
ington.' I  remember  the  accounts  there  given  of  the  battlefields 
and  struggles  for  the  liberties  of  the  country ;  and  none  fixed  them- 
selves upon  my  imagination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  crossing  of  the  river,  the  contest  with 
the  Hessians,  the  great  hardships  endured  at  that  time — all  fixed 
themselves  upon  my  memory  more  than  any  single  Revolutionary 
event.  ...  I  recollect  thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was, 
that  there  must  have  been  something  more  than  common  that  these 
men  struggled  for.  "    .... 

Addressing  the  other  branch  of  the  Legislature,  he  said : 

"The  man  does  not  live  who  is  more  devoted  to  peace  than  I 
am,  none  who  would  do  more  to  preserve  it,  but  it  may  be  necessary 
to  put  the  foot  down  firmly.  And  if  I  do  my  duty  and  do  right, 
you  will  sustain  me,  will  you  not?" 

He  was  answered  with  hearty  cheers  and  cries  of  "  Yes,  yes, 
we  will!" 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  120. 

At  Independence  Hall  on  Washington's  Birthday 

From  Trenton  Mr.  Lincoln  proceeded  to  Philadelphia,  and  was 
escorted  to  the  Continental  Hotel.  While  in  this  city  he  was 
invited  to  raise  the  national  flag  over  Independence  Hall,  where  the 


378  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Declaration  of  Independence  was  first  published  to  the  world. 
Before  raising  the  flag  he  said : 

"  I  have  often  pondered  over  the  dangers  which  were  incurred 
by  the  men  who  assembled  here  and  framed  and  adopted  that 
Declaration  of  Independence.  ...  I  have  often  inquired  of 
myself  what  great  principle  or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this  confederacy 
so  long  together.  It  was  not  the  mere  matter  of  separation  of  the 
Colonies  from  the  Mother-land,  but  that  sentiment  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  which  gave  liberty,  not  alone  to  the  people  of 
this  country,  but  hope  to  all  the  world  for  all  future  time.  It  was 
that  which  gave  promise  that  in  due  time  the  weight  would  be 
lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men  and  that  all  should  have  an  equal 
chance.  This  is  the  sentiment  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence. 

"  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  country  be  saved  upon  that  basis? 
If  it  can,  I  shall  consider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  men  in  the 
world  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  If  it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that 
principle,  it  will  be  truly  awful.  But  if  this  country  cannot  be 
saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would 
rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender  it.  I  have  said 
nothing  but  what  I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be  the  pleasure 
of  Almighty  God,  to  die  by. " 

He  was  escorted  to  a  platform  in  front  of  the  building,  and  the 
cord  was  placed  in  his  hands.  The  beautiful  flag  arose  to  the  top 
of  the  staff,  and  he  says  himself : 

"  It  floated  gloriously  to  the  wind  without  an  accident,  in  the 
bright,  glowing  sunshine  of  the  morning. " 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  121. 

Mr.  Lmcoln  Tells  Why  He  Passed  through  Baltimore  in  the  Night 

"Mr.  Judd,  a  warm  personal  friend  of  mine  from  Chicago,  sent 
for  me  to  come  to  his  room  (at  the  Continental  Hotel,  Philadelphia, 
February  21st).  I  went,  and  found  there  Mr.  Pinkerton,  a  skillful 
police  detective,  also  from  Chicago,  who  had  been  employed  for 
some  days  in  Baltimore  watching  or  searching  for  suspicious  persons 
there.  Pinkerton  informed  me  that  a  plan  had  been  laid  for  my 
assassination,  the  exact  time  when  I  expected  to  go  through  Balti- 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  379 

more  being  publicly  known.  He  was  well  informed  as  to  the  plan, 
but  did  not  know  that  the  conspirators  would  have  pluck  enough  to 
execute  it.  He  urged  me  to  go  right  through  with  him  to  Wash- 
ington that  night.  I  didn't  like  that.  I  had  made  engagements  to 
visit  Harrisburg  and  go  from  there  to  Baltimore,  and  I  resolved  to 
do  so.     I  could  not  believe  that  there  was  a  plot  to  murder  me. 

"I  made  arrangements,  however,  with  Mr.  Judd  for  my  return 
to  Philadelphia  the  next  night,  if  I  should  be  convinced  that  there 
was  danger  in  going  through  Baltimore.  I  told  them  that  if  I 
should  meet  at  Harrisburg,  as  I  had  at  other  places,  a  delegation  to 
go  on  with  me  to  the  next  place  (Baltimore),  I  should  feel  safe  and 
go  on.  When  I  was  making  my  way  back  to  my  room,  through 
crowds  of  people,  I  met  Frederick  Seward.  We  went  together  to 
my  room  when  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  sent,  at  the  instance 
of  his  father  and  General  Scott,  to  inform  me  that  their  detectives 
in  Baltimore  had  discovered  a  plot  there  to  assassinate  me.  They 
knew  nothing  of  Mr.  Pinkerton's  movements.  I  now  believed  such 
a  plot  to  be  in  existence." 

Lossing's  History  of  the  Civil  War,  Vol.  I,  page  278, 

How  Robert  Lincoln  Lost  His  Father's  Inaugural  Address 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  prepared  his  first  inaugural  address  in  a  room 
over  a  store  in  Springfield.  His  only  reference  works  were  Henry 
Clay's  great  Compromise  Speech  of  1850,  Andrew  Jackson's  Procla- 
mation against  Nullification,  Webster's  great  Reply  to  Hayne,  and  a 
copy  of  the  Constitution. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  started  for  Washington  to  be  inaugurated, 
the  inaugural  address  was  placed  in  a  special  satchel  and  guarded 
with  special  care.  At  Harrisburg  the  satchel  was  given  in  charge 
of  Robert  T.  Lincoln,  who  accompanied  his  father.  Before  the 
train  started  from  Harrisburg  the  precious  satchel  was  missing. 
Robert  thought  he  had  given  it  to  a  waiter  at  the  hotel,  but  a  long 
search  failed  to  reveal  the  bag  with  its  precious  document.  Lincoln 
was  annoyed,  angry,  and  finally  in  despair.  He  felt  certain  that 
the  address  was  lost  beyond  recovery,  and,  as  it  lacked  only  ten 
days  until  the  inauguration,  he  had  no  time  to  prepare  another. 
He  had  not  even  preserved  the  notes  from  which  the  original  copy 
had  been  w^ritten. 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Ward  Lamon,  his  former  law  partner,  then 


3  So  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

one  of  his  body-guard,  and  informed  him  of  the  loss  in  the  following 
words : 

"  Lamon,  I  guess  I  have  lost  my  certificate  of  moral  character, 
written  by  myself.  Bob  has  lost  the  gripsack  containing  my 
inaugural  address. "      .... 

The  clerk  at  the  hotel  told  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  would  probably 
find  his  missing  satchel  in  the  baggage-room.  Arriving  there,  Mr. 
Lincoln  saw  a  satchel  which  he  thought  was  his,  and  it  was  passed 
out  to  him.  His  key  fitted  the  lock,  but,  alas !  when  it  was  opened 
the  bag  contained  only  a  soiled  shirt,  some  paper  collars  and  a  bottle 
of  whiskey.  A  few  minutes  later  the  satchel  containing  the  inau- 
gural address  was   found  among  the  pile  of  baggage. 

The  recovery  of  the  address  reminded  Mr.  Lincoln  of  a  story, 
which  is  thus  narrated  by  Ward  Lamon  in  his  "Recollections  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  " : 

The  loss  of  the  address  and  the  search  for  it  was  the  subject  of 
a  great  deal  of  amusement.  Mr.  Lincoln  said  many  funny  things 
in  connection  with  the  incident.  One  of  them  was  that  he  knew  a 
fellow  once  who  had  saved  up  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and  had 
placed  it  in  a  private  banking  establishment.  The  bank  soon 
failed,  and  he  afterward  received  ten  per  cent,  of  his  investment. 
He  then  took  his  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  deposited  it  in  a 
savings  bank,  where  he  was  sure  it  would  be  safe.  In  a  short  time 
this  bank  also  failed,  and  he  received  at  the  final  settlement  ten  per 
cent,  on  the  amount  deposited.  When  the  fifteen  dollars  was  paid 
over  to  him,  he  held  it  in  his  hand  and  looked  at  it  thoughtfully, 
then  he  said : 

"  Now,  darn  you!  I  have  got  you  reduced  to  a  portable  shape, 
so  I'll  put  you  in  my  pocket.  " 

Suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  Mr.  Lincoln  took  his  address 
from  the  bag  and  carefully  placed  it  in  the  inside  pocket  of  his  vest, 
but  held  on  to  the  satchel  with  as  much  interest  as  if  it  still  con- 
tained his  "  certificate  of  moral  character.  " 

Ahe  Lincoln  s  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  iii, 

A  Railroad  Official's  Letter 

On  the  night  of  February  9th  [1861]  I  sent  you  a  letter,  as  fol- 
lows : 
"Allan  Pinkerton,  Esq.,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

"Yours  of  the  6th  inst.,  received.     I  am  informed  that  a  son 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  381 

of  a  distinguished  citizen  of  Maryland  said  he  had  taken  an  oath 
with  others  to  assassinate  Mr.  Lincoln  before  he  gets  to  Washington, 
and  they  may  attempt  to  do  it  while  he  is  passing  over  our  road. 
I  think  you  had  better  look  after  this  man  if  possible.  This  infor- 
mation is  perfectly  reliable.  I  have  nothing  more  to  say  at  this 
time.     I  shall  try  and  see  you  in  a  few  days. 

"On  the  night  of  the  22nd  of  February,  1861,  Mr.  Kenny  and 
yourself  met  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  West  Philadelphia  depot,  and  took 
him  in  a  carriage  over  to  the  Philadelphia,  Wilmington  &  Baltimore 
Railroad  depot.  Mr.  Lincoln  took  a  berth  in  the  sleeping  car,  and 
at  eleven  p.m.  the  train  left  the  depot  for  Washington.  I  met  you 
in  our  depot  at  Baltimore,  went  into  the  sleeping  car  and  whispered 
in  your  ear  '  all  is  right, '  which  seemed  to  be  welcome  news  to 
you — it  certainly  was  to  me.  Mr.  Lincoln  arrived  in  Washington 
without  even  the  officers  of  the  train  knowing  that  he  was  aboard. 

(Signed)  "William  Stearns.  " 
(Master  Machinist  of  the  Philadelphia, 
Wilmington  &  Baltimore  R.  R.) 

Extract  from  a  letter  to  Allan  Pinkerton,  in  History  and  Passage  of  Abraham  Lincoln  from  Harris- 
burg,  Pa.,  to  Washington,  D.  C, — on  the  22nd  and  23d  of  February,  1861,  page  21. 

Unexpectedly  Met  in  Washington 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  23d  (of  February),  Mr.  Seward  cam^ 
to  my  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  told  me  he  had  no 
information  from  his  son  nor  anyone  else  in  respect  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
movements,  and  that  he  could  have  none,  as  the  wires  were  all  cut, 
but  he  thought  it  very  probable  he  would  arrive  in  the  regular  train 
from  Philadelphia,  and  he  suggested  that  we  would  meet  in  the 
depot  to  receive  him.  We  were  promptly  on  hand;  the  train 
arrived  on  time,  and  with  strained  eyes  we  watched  the  descent  of 
the  passengers. 

But  there  was  no  Mr.  Lincoln  among  them ;  though  his  arrival 
was  by  no  means  certain,  yet  we  were  much  disappointed.  But 
as  there  was  no  telegraphic  connection,  it  was  impossible  for  us  to 
have  any  information.  It  was  no  use  to  speculate.  Sad,  disap- 
pointed, and  under  the  empire  of  conflicting  emotions  we  separated 
to  go  to  our  respective  homes ;  but  agreeing  to  be  at  the  depot  on  the 
arrival  of  the  New  York  train  the  next  morning  before  daylight, 


382  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

hoping  either  to  meet  the  President  or  get  information  as  to  his 
movements. 

I  was  on  hand  in  season,  but  to  my  great  disappointment, 
Governor  Seward  did  not  appear.  I  planted  myself  behind  one  of 
the  great  pillars  in  the  old  Washington  and  Baltimore  depot,  where 
I  could  see  and  not  be  observed.  Presently  the  train  came  rum- 
bling in  on  time.   It  was  a  moment  of  great  anxiety  to  me. 

As  I  have  stated,  I  stood  behind  the  pillar  awaiting  the  arrival 
of  the  train.  When  it  came  to  a  stop  I  watched  with  fear  and 
trembling  to  see  the  passengers  descend.  I  saw  every  car  emptied, 
and  there  was  no  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  was  well-nigh  in  despair,  and  when 
about  to  leave  I  saw  slowly  emerge  from  the  last  sleeping-car  three 
persons.  I  could  not  mistake  the  long,  lank  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
my  heart  bounded  with  joy  and  gratitude.  He  had  on  a  soft  low- 
crowned  hat,  a  muffler  around  his  neck,  and  a  short  bob-tailed  over- 
coat. Any  one  who  knew  him  at  that  time  could  not  have  failed  to 
recognize  him  at  once 

The  only  persons  that  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln  were  Pinkerton, 
the  well-known  detective  .  .  and  Ward  H.  Lamon.  When  they 
were  fairly  on  the  platform  and  a  short  distance  from  the  car,  I 
stepped  forward  and  accosted  the  President: 

"How  are  you,  Lincoln?" 

At  this  unexpected  and  rather  familiar  salutation  the  gentle- 
men were  apparently  somewhat  startled,  but  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
recognized  me,  relieved  them  at  once  by  remarking  in  his  peculiar 
voice : 

"This  is  only  Washburne!" 

Then  we  all  exchanged  congratulations  and  walked  out  to  the 
front  of  the  depot,  where  I  had  a  carriage  in  waiting.  Entering  the 
carriage  (all  four  of  us)  we  drove  rapidly  to  Willard's  Hotel,  entering 
on  Fourteenth  street,  before  it  was  fairly  daylight.  The  porter 
showed  us  into  the  little  receiving  room  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and 
at  my  direction  went  to  the  office  to  have  Mr.  Lincoln  assigned  a  room. 

We  had  not  been  in  the  hotel  more  than  two  minutes  before 
Governor  Seward  hurriedly  entered,  much  out  of  breath  and  some- 
what chagrined  to  think  he  had  not  been  up  in  season  to  be  at  the 
depot  on  the  arrival  of  the  train.  The  meeting  of  these  two  great 
men,  under  the  extraordinary  circumstances  which  surrounded 
them,  was  full  of  emotion  and  thankfulness. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON  383 


I  soon  took  my  leave  .  .  and  as  I  passed  out  the  outside  door, 
the  Irish  porter  said  to  me  with  a  smiling  face : 

"And  faith,  it  is  you  that  brought  us  a  Prisident!" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Elihu  B.  Washbume.  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  3*. 

Chaotic  Condition  of  the  Government 

The  condition  of  the  Government  when  Lincoln  reached  Wash- 
ington may  be  described  as  chaotic.  Bewildered  and  intimidated 
by  threats  of  secession,  most  of  the  political  leaders  in  the  North 
had  lost  their  heads,  and  their  Babel  of  incoherences  merely  aggra- 
vated the  hopeless  confusion.  During  the  first  weeks  of  December, 
i860,  at  least  forty  bills,  each  promising  national  salvation,  were 
introduced  into  the  House  and  Senate,  and  more  futile  propositions 
were  probably  never  submitted  to  a  legislative  body.  Every  form 
of  w^eak-kneed  compromise  from  sentimental  sop  to  abject  surrender 
had  its  nervous  advocate,  and  between  Andrew  Johnson's  puerile 
scheme  of  giving  the  Presidency  to  the  South  and  the  Vice-Presi- 
dency to  the  North,  and  vice  versd,  every  alternate  four  years,  and 
Daniel  Sickles 's  wild-eyed  pother  about  New  York  City's  separa- 
tion from  the  Union,  every  phase  of  political  dementia  was  painfully 
exhibited. 

It  was  not  only  the  mental  weaklings  who  collapsed  under  the 
strain.  .There  were  men  of  force  and  character  among  the  panic- 
stricken.  .  .  .  President  Buchanan  .  .  employed  his  legal  tal- 
ents to  such  poor  advantage  that  he  virtually  argued  against  his 
own  client,  noting  prohibitions,  negations,  and  general  impotency 
in  every  line  of  the  Constitution,  but  not  seeing  one  word  of  help  in 
it  for  the  government  he  represented.  As  Seward  remarked,  his 
long  and  argumentative  message  to  Congress  in  December,  i860, 
conclusively  proved,  first,  that  no  State  had  the  right  to  secede 
unless  it  wanted  to,  and,  second,  that  it  was  the  President's  duty 
to  enforce  the  law  unless  somebody  opposed  him.      ... 

Seward  himself,  able  lawyer  though  he  was,  completely  lost 
his  head  a  few  months  later,  his  particular  mania  taking  the  suicidal 
form  of  averting  the  civil  perils  by  instigating  a  foreign  war.  .  .  . 
And  Horace  Greeley,  almost  beside  himself  with  grief  and  fear, 
quavered  out  empty  suggestions  for  conciliation  which  only  in' 
creased  the  public  perplexity. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  293. 


CHAPTER  XV 
At  the  Helm  of  State 

The  Morning  before  the  Inauguration 

Daybreak  of  March  4,  1861,  found  the  city  of  Washington  astir. 
The  Senate,  which  had  met  at  seven  o'clock  the  night  before,  was 
still  in  session;  scores  of  persons  who  had  come  to  see  the  inau- 
guration of  the  first  Republican  President,  and  who  had  been  unable 
to  find  other  bed  than  the  floor,  were  walking  the  streets;  the 
morning  trains  w^ere  bringing  new  crowds.  Added  to  the  stir  of 
those  who  had  not  slept  through  the  night  were  sounds  unusual  in 
Washington — ^the  clatter  of  cavalry,  the  tramp  of  soldiers. 

All  this  morning  bustle  of  the  city  must  have  reached  the 
ears  of  the  President-elect,  at  his  rooms  at  Willard's  Hotel,  W'here, 
from  an  early  hour  he  had  been  at  W'Ork.  An  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  passed  the  Senate  in  the 
all-night  session,  and  as  it  concerned  the  subject  of  his  Inaugural, 
he  must  incorporate  a  reference  to  it  in  the  address.  Then  he  had 
not  replied  to  the  note  he  had  received  two  days  before  from  Mr. 
Seward,  asking  to  be  released  from  his  promise  to  accept  the  port- 
folio of  State.     He  could  wait  no  longer. 

"  I  can't  afford,  "  he  said  to  Mr.  Nicolay,  his  secretary,  "to  let 
Seward  take  the  first  trick.  " 

And  he  despatched  the  following  letter: 

"My  dear  Sir: — Your  note  of  the  2nd  instant,  asking  to  with- 
draw your  acceptance  of  my  invitation  to  take  charge  of  the  State 
Department,  was  duly  received.  It  is  the  subject  of  the  most 
painful  solicitude  to  me,  and  I  feel  constrained  to  beg  that  you  wdll 
countermand  the  withdrawal.  The  public  interest,  I  think,  de- 
mands that  you  should ;  and  my  personal  feelings  are  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  same  direction.  Please  consider  and  answer  by  9  a.m. 
to-morrow.     Your  obedient  servant, 

"A.  Lincoln." 
(^84} 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  385 

At  noon,  Mr.  Lincoln's  work  was  interrupted.  The  President 
of  the  United  States  was  announced.  Mr.  Buchanan  had  come  to 
escort  his  successor  to  the  Capitol.  The  route  of  the  procession  was 
the  historic  one  over  which  almost  every  President  since  Jefferson 
had  traveled  to  take  his  oath  of  office ;  but  the  scene  Mr.  Lincoln 
looked  upon  as  his  carriage  rolled  up  the  avenue  was  very  different 
from  that  upon  which  one  looks  to-day.  No  great  blocks  lined  the 
streets ;  instead,  the  buildings  were  low,  and  there  were  numerous 
vacant  spaces.  Instead  of  asphalt,  the  carriage  passed  over  cobble- 
stones. Nor  did  the  present  stately  and  beautiful  approach  to  the 
Capitol  exist.  The  west  front  rose  abrupt  and  stiff  from  an  unkept 
lawn.  The  great  building  itself  was  still  uncompleted,  and  high 
above  his  head  Mr.  Lincoln  could  see  the  swinging  arm  of  an  enor- 
mous crane  rising  from  the  unfinished  dome. 

But,  as  he  drove  that  morning  from  Willard's  to  the  Capitol, 
the  President-elect  saw  far  more  significant  sights  than  these. 
Closed  about  his  carriage,  "  so  thickly, "  complained  the  newspapers, 
"as  to  hide  it  from  view,"  was  a  protecting  guard.  Stationed  at 
intervals  along  the  avenue  were  platoons  of  soldiers.  At  every 
corner  were  mounted  orderlies.  On  the  very  roof-tops  were  groups 
of  riflemen.  When  Lincoln  reached  the  north  side  of  the  Capitol, 
iv'here  he  descended  to  enter  the  building,  he  found  a  board  tunnel, 
strongly  guarded  at  its  mouth,  through  which  he  passed  into  the 
building.      .    .    . 

Arm  in  arm  with  Mr.  Buchanan,  Mr.  Lincoln  passed  through 
the  long  tunnel  erected  for  his  protection,  entered  the  Capitol,  and 
passed  into  the  Senate  Chamber,  filled  to  overflowing  with  Senators, 
members  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps  and  visitors.  The  contrast 
between  the  two  men  as  they  entered  struck  every  observer.  "  Mr. 
Buchanan  was  so  withered  and  bowed  with  age, "  wrote  George  W. 
Julian  of  Indiana,  who  was  among  the  spectators,"  that  in  contrast 
with  the  towering  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln  he  seemed  little  more  than 
half  a  man. " 

A  few  moments'  delay,  and  the  movement  from  the  Senate 
towards  the  east  front  began,  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
in  cap  and  gown,  leading  the  procession.  As  soon  as  the  large 
company  was  seated  on  the  platform  erected  on  the  east  portico  of 
the  Capitol,  Mr.  Lincoln  arose  and  advanced  to  the  front,  where  he 

as 


386  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

was  introduced  by  his  friend,  Senator  Baker  of  Oregon.  He  carried 
a  cane  and  a  little  roll — the  manuscript  of  his  Inaugural  Address. 

There  was  a  moment's  pause  after  the  introduction,  as  he  vainly 
looked  for  a  spot  where  he  might  place  his  high  silk  hat.  Stephen 
A.  Douglas,  the  political  antagonist  of  his  whole  public  life,  the  man 
who  had  pressed  him  hardest  in  the  campaign  of  i860,  was  seated 
just  behind  him.  Douglas  stepped  forward  quickly,  and  took  the 
hat  which  Mr.  Lincoln  held  helplessly  in  his  hand. 

"If  I  can't  be  President,"  he  whispered  smilingly  to  Mrs. 
Brown,  a  cousin  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  a  member  of  the  President's 
party,  "  I  at  least  can  hold  his  hat.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  i. 

The  Inaugural  Address 

The  Inaugural  had  but  one  general  theme.  Some  points  of  it 
are  detachable  as  indicating  the  purposes  and  policy  which  the  new 
President  had  in  mind  at  the  beginning;  while  as  a  whole  it  is  one 
of  his  most  impressive  papers.     He  said : 

'  'Apprehension  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  that  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican  administration  their 
property  and  their  peace  and  personal  security  are  endangered. 
There  has  never  been  any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehension. 
Indeed,  the  most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while 
existed  and  been  open  to  inspection.  It  is  found  in  nearly  all  the 
published  speeches  of  him  who  now  addresses  you.  I  do  but  quote 
from  one  of  those  speeches  when  I  declare  that  '  I  have  no  purpose, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in 
the  States  where  it  exists. '  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to  do  so ; 
and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so. " 

He  cited  also  a  resolution  of  the  convention  which  nominated 
him,  as  "  clear  and  emphatic"  on  this  matter,  and  continued : 

"I  now  reiterate  these  sentiments ;  and  in  doing  so  I  only  press 
upon  the  public  attention  the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  which 
the  case  is  susceptible,  that  the  property,  peace  and  security  of  no 
section  are  to  be  in  any  wise  endangered  by  the  incoming  administra- 
tion. I  add,  too,  that  all  the  protection  which,  consistently  with 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  can  be  given,  will  be  cheerfully 


Fro*     The  True  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Elbridge  S.  Brooks. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  DELIVERING  HIS  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS,  MARCH  4,   1861 

Seated  behind  Lincoln,  from  left  to  right:  Chief -Justice  Taney,  President  Buchanan,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and 
Senator  Baker.     Senator  Douglas  is  standing  behind  Mr.  Justice  Taney,  holding  Lincoln's  hat. 


388  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

given  to  all  States  when  lawfully  demanded,  for  whatever  causef- 

as  cheerfully  to  one  section  as  to  another 

"I  take  the  official  oath  to-day  with  no  mental  reservations, 
and  with  no  purpose  to  construe  the  Constitution  or  laws  by  any 
hypercritical  rules." 

He  then  took  up  the  matter  of  Disunion,  arguing  in  the  most 

forcible  manner  against  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede 

Argument,  persuasion,  entreaty  followed : 

"Physically  speaking,  w^e  can  not  separate ;  we  can  not  remove 
our  respective  sections  from  each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable 
wall  between  them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and  go 
out  of  the  presence  and  beyond  the  reach  of  each  other,  but  the 
different  parts  of  our  country  can  not  do  this.  They  can  not  but 
remain  face  to  face;  and  intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile, 
must  continue  between  them.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to  make  that 
intercourse  more  advantageous  or  more  satisfactory  after  separa- 
tion than  before  ?  Can  aliens  make  treaties  easier  than  friends  can 
make  laws  ?  Can  treaties  be  more  faithfully  enforced  between  aliens 
than  laws  can  among  friends  ?  Suppose  you  go  to  war,  you  cannot 
fight  always;  and  when,  after  much  loss  on  both  sides,  and  no  gain 
on  either,  you  cease  fighting,  the  identical  question  as  to  terms  of 
intercourse  are  again  upon  you 

"If  it  were  admitted  that  you  who  are  dissatisfied  hold  the 
right  side  in  the  dispute,  there  is  still  no  single  reason  for  precipitate 
action.  Intelligence,  patriotism,  Christianity,  and  a  firm  reliance 
in  Him  who  has  never  yet  forsaken  this  favored  land,  are  still  com- 
petent to  adjust,  in  the  best  way,  all  our  present  difficulties. 

"In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not  in 
mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  Government  will 
not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves 
the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  registered  in  Heaven  to  destroy 
the  Government ;  while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  '  pre- 
serve, protect  and  defend'  it. 

"I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We 
must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it  must 
not  break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory, 
stretching  from  every  battlefield  and  patriot  grave  to  every  living 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  389 

heart  and  hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be, 
by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

After  bowing  response  to  the  applause  of  his  auditors,  he 
turned  to  Chief -Justice  Taney,  at  his  side,  and  repeated  from  his 
lips  the  required  official  oath.  Then  followed  a  salute  from  the 
cannons  of  the  battery  near  at  hand  while  the  procession  re-formed 
and  began  its  return  march  to  the  White  House. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  I,  page  279. 

Horace  Greeley  on  the  Inaugural  Address 

The  strong  point  of  the  Inaugural  is  its  frank  and  plump  denial 
of  the  fundamental  Secession  dogma  that  our  Union  is  a  league, 
formed  in  1787. 

"The  Union  is  much  older  than  the  Constitution,"  says  Mr. 
Lincoln  truly  and  pertinently.  Had  the  Constitution  been  rejected 
by  the  States,  the  Union  would  nevertheless  have  subsisted.  Ours 
is  "one  country" — made  so  by  God  and  His  Providence,  revealed 
through  the  whole  of  its  history;  its  "more  perfect  Union"  is  but 
a  step  in  its  development — not  the  cause  of  its  existence.  Hence, 
Secession  is  not  "  the  dissolution  of  a  league,  "  as  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis 
asserts,  but  a  treasonable,  though  futile,  effort  to  disorganize  and 
destroy  a  nation. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  rejection  of  Disunion  as  physically  impossible — as 
forbidden  by  the  geography  and  topography  of  our  country — is  a 
statesmanlike  conception  that  had  not  before  been  so  clearly  appre- 
hended or  so  forcibly  set  forth 

Mr.  Lincoln  fondly  regarded  his  Inaugural  as  a  resistless  prof- 
fering of  the  olive-branch  to  the  South;  the  conspirators  every- 
where interpreted  it  as  a  challenge  to  war.  And  when  the  former 
had  taken  the  oath,  solemnly  administered  to  him  by  Chief -Justice 
Taney,  the  two  Presidents  wended  their  way  back,  duly  escorted, 
to  the  White  House,  at  whose  door  Mr.  Buchanan  bade  Mr.  Lincoln 
a  cordial  good-bye,  retiring  to  the  residence  of  his  friend  and  bene- 
ficiary, Robert  Ould,  whom  he  had  made  U.  S.  District  Attorney, 
and  who,  though  from  Maryland,  soon  after  fled  to  Richmond,  and 
entered  at  once  the  military  service  of  the  Confederacy. 

The  American  Conflict,  Horace  Greeley,  page  427. 


390  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

At  the  Head  of  the  Crumbling  Government 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  all  this  deplorable  helplessness  and  dis- 
traction that  Lincoln  assumed  his  duties  as  head  of  the  crumbling 
government,  and  of  all  the  earnest  supporters  of  the  Union,  he  alone 
displayed  any  calmness  or  presence  of  mind,  and  his  Inaugural 
Address  contained  almost  the  first  decisive  utterance  on  the  legal 
aspect  of  the  situation 

No  State  could,  of  its  own  motion,  lawfully  withdraw  from  the 
Union,  he  declared  with  firmness.  It  was  not  necessary  that  the 
Constitution  should  contain  any  express  provision  forbidding  such 
action.  Perpetuity  was  implied,  if  not  expressed,  in  the  funda- 
mental law  of  all  national  governments.  No  government  proper 
ever  had  a  provision  in  its  organic  law  for  its  own  termination.  But 
if  the  United  States  was  not  a  government  proper,  but  a  mere  asso- 
ciation of  States  bound  by  an  agreement  in  the  nature  of  a  contract, 
then  the  law  of  contracts  applied.  One  party  to  a  legal  contract 
might  violate  it,  break  it,  so  to  speak,  but  mutual  consent  of  all  the 
parties  was  necessary  before  it  could  be  lawfully  rescinded. 

Lincoln  the  Lawyer,  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  page  295. 

The  New  President's  First  Perplexity 

On  the  28th  of  February  Major  Anderson's  case  had  become 
so  desperate  that  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  War  Department  at 
Washington,  describing  the  perils  of  his  situation  and  saying  that, 
in  his  opinion,  it  would  require  a  force  of  twenty  thousand  men  to 
throw  reinforcements  into  his  garrison  in  season  to  save  him  from 
starvation.  This  letter  was  not  received  by  the  Department  until 
the  4th  day  of  March.  The  next  day  it  was  presented  to  President 
Lincoln,  who  immediately  laid  the  case  before  General  Scott.  .  .  . 
The  Government  had  not  such  a  body  of  men  at  its  disposal ;  neither 
could  it  raise  them  before  the  garrison  would  be  out  of  provisions.    . 

The  President  was  in  a  sad  dilemma.  He  did  not  want  to  use 
force  against  the  Rebels  if  he  could  help  it.  He  had  told  them  in 
his  Inaugural  Address  that  there  would  be  no  war  unless  they  began 
it.  .  .  .  After  a  great  deal  of  reflection  and  a  conference  with 
General  Scott,  the  President  concluded  that  he  would  reinforce  Fort 
Pickens  .    because   he  thought   he   had   men   enough  at   his 

command  to  do  this;  and  perhaps  by  the  time  this  was  accom- 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  391 

plished,  a  way  might  be  devised  for  reinforcing  Fort  Sumter 

He  ordered  this  expedition  to  sail  at  once,  and  also  despatched 
another  order  to  the  commander  of  the  Sabine,  and  Fort  Pickens 
•was  at  length  amply  reinforced. 

Governor  Pickens  of  South  Carolina  was  now  informed  that 
provisions  would  be  sent  to  Fort  Sumter, — peaceably,  if  possible, 
but  otherwise  by  force.  At  all  events  the  garrison  was  to  be  pro- 
visioned. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  136. 

"Some  Thoughts  for  the  President's  Consideration" 

The  men  Lincoln  had  invited  to  become  members  of  his  political 
family  each  thought  himself  greater  than  his  chief.  They  should 
have  heard  the  voice  and  seen  the  hand  of  a  man  born  to  command. 
From  the  day  Abraham  Lincoln  entered  the  White  House  to  the 
hour  he  went  thence  to  his  death,  there  was  not  a  moment  when 
he  did  not  control  the  situation  and  all  his  ofificial  dependents. 

Mr.  Seward  was  the  first  to  yield  to  his  own  presumption. 
One  of  the  most  extraordinary  incidents  that  ever  passed  between  a 
ruler  and  his  subordinate  came  about  within  thirty  days  after  the 
beginning  of  the  new  Administration. 

On  April  i  Mr.  Seward  submitted  to  Mr.  Lincoln  a  memoran- 
dum, entitled  "Some  Thoughts  for  the  President's  Consideration." 
He  began  this  by  saying:  "We  are  at  the  end  of  a  month's  admin- 
istration, and  yet  without  a  policy,  either  foreign  or  domestic." 
Then  follows  a  series  of  remarkable  suggestions.  They  are  for  the 
most  part  flimsy  and  irrelevant ;  but  two  of  them  are  so  ridiculous 
that  I  quote  them  as  specimens.     Mr.  Seward  writes  as  follows : 

"We  must  change  the  question  before  the  public  from  one 
upon  slavery,  or  about  slavery,  to  one  upon  union  or  disunion,  and 
I  would  demand  explanations  from  Spain  and  France,  energetic- 
ally, at  once,  ....  and,  if  satisfactory  explanations  are  not 
received  from  Spain  and  France,  I  would  convene  Congress  and 

declare  war  against  them I  would  seek  explanations 

from  Great  Britain  and  Russia,  and  send  agents  into  Canada, 
Mexico,  and  Central  America  to  arouse  a  vigorous  spirit  of  conti- 
nental independence  on  this  continent  against  European  inter- 
vention." 


392 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Indeed !  At  the  very  moment  this  advice  was  seriously  given 
the  President  by  the  Secretary  of  State  the  Southern  Confederacy 
had  been  estabhshed,  and  Europe  was  most  keen  for  a  pretext  to 
interfere  to  effect  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  and  defeat  the  Repub- 
lican form  of  government  in  America.  The  Government  of  the 
United  States  had  only  to  menace  France  and  Spain,  to  wink  its 
eye  at  England  and  Russia,  to  raise  up  a  four-sided  alliance  of 
monarchy  against  democracy  and  bring  down  upon  itself  the  navies 

of  Europe,  and  thus  assure  and  con- 
firm the  Government  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy. 

In  closing  his  astonishing  advice, 
Mr.  Seward  adds: 

"  But  whatever  policy  we  adopt, 
there  must  be  an  energetic  prosecution 
of  it. 

"  For  this  purpose  it  must  be 
somebody's  business  to  pursue  and 
direct  it  incessantly. 

"  Either  the  President  must  do  it 
himself  and  be  all  the  while  active  in  it, 
or  devolve  it  on  some  member  of  his 
Cabinet. 

"  Once  adopted,  all  debates  on  it 
must  end,  and  all  agree  and  abide. 
"It  is  not  in  my  special  province;  but  I  neither  seek  to  evade 
nor  assume  responsibility." 

If  Mr.  Seward  had  blandly  said:  "Mr.  Lincoln,  you  are  a 
failure  as  President ;  just  turn  over  the  management  of  affairs  to 
me,  and  the  rest  shall  be  forgiven,  "  he  could  hardly  have  spoken 
more  offensively. 

Report  of  Lectiire  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  Henry  Watterson.  ♦ 


HENRY  WATTERSON 


The  President's  Plain  but  Kind  Reproof 

Now  let  us  see  how  a  great  man  carries  himself  at  a  critical 
moment  under  extreme  provocation.  Here  is  the  answer  Mr. 
Lincoln  sent  Mr.  Seward  that  very  night: 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  393 

"Executive  Mansion,  April  i,  1861. 
"Hon.  W.  H.  Seward: 

"My  dear  Sir:  Since  parting  with  you  I  have  been  considering 
your  paper  dated  this  day  and  entitled  'Some  Thoughts  for  the 
President's  Consideration.'  The  first  proposition  in  it  is,  'we  are 
at  the  end  of  a  month's  administration  and  yet  without  a  policy, 
either  domestic  or  foreign. ' 

"At  the  beginning  of  that  month,  in  the  Inaugural,  I  said:  'The 
power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  Government,  and  to  collect  the 
duties  and  imposts. '  This  had  your  distinct  approval  at  the  time ; 
and  taken  in  connection  with  the  order  I  immediately  gave  Gen- 
eral Scott,  directing  him  to  employ  every  means  in  his  power  to 
strengthen  and  hold  the  forts,  comprises  the  exact  domestic  policy 
you  urge,  with  the  single  exception  that  it  does  not  propose  to 
abandon  Fort  Sumter 

"Upon  your  closing  propositions  that  'whatever  policy  we 
adopt,  there  must  be  an  energetic  prosecution  of  it;'  .... 
'It  must  be  somebody's  business;'  ....  ' Either  the  President 
must  do  it  ....  or  devolve  it  upon  some  member  of  his 
Cabinet ;  "Once  adopted,  debates  must  end,  and  all  agree  and  abide ; ' 
I  remark  that  if  this  be  done  I  must  do  it.  When  a  general  line  of 
policy  is  adopted,  I  apprehend  there  is  no  danger  of  its  being  changed 
without  good  reason,  or  continuing  to  be  a  subject  of  unnecessary 
debate;  still,  upon  points  arising  in  its  progress,  I  wish,  and  suppose 
I  am  entitled  to  have,  the  advice  of  all  the  Cabinet. 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Nicolay  and  Hay  state  that  in  this  letter  not  a  word  was 
omitted  that  was  necessary,  and  there  is  not  an  allusion  in  it  that 
could  be  dispensed  with.  It  concluded  the  argument.  Mr.  Lincoln 
never  mentioned  it.  From  that  time  on  the  understanding  between 
them  was  cordial  and  agreeable.  About  eight  weeks  later,  on  May  2 1 , 
Mr.  Seward  placed  before  the  President  the  draft  of  a  letter  of  in- 
structions to  Charles  Francis  Adams,  United  States  Minister  to 
England.     Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  scruple  to  change  its  character  and 

purpose  by  altering  the  text It  is  well  understood  that  if 

that  letter  had  gone  as  Mr.  Seward  wrote  it,  a  war  with  England 


394  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

would  have  been  inevitable Even  in  the  substitution  of 

one  word  for  another,  Mr.  Lincoln  evinced  a  grasp  both  upon  the 
situation  and  the  language,  of  which  Mr.  Seward,  with  all  his 
experience  and  learning,  appears  to  have  been  oblivious.  It  is  said 
that  in  considering  this  document,  sitting  with  his  head  bowed  and, 
pencil  in  hand,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  heard  to  repeat  softly  to  himself : 
"  One  war  at  a  time — one  war  at  a  time.  " 

Report  of  Lecture  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  Henry  Watterson. 

Confederate  Commissioners  and  "  the  Gage  of  Battle  " 

It  was  on  the  12th  of  March,  1861,  that  the  Rebel  or  Con- 
federate States  sent  Commissioners  to  the  United  States  to  adjust 
matters  in  reference  to  secession.  Mr.  Seward  refused  to  receive 
them,  on  the  ground  that  they  had  not  withdrawn  from  the  Union, 
and  were  unable  to  do  so  unless  it  were  by  the  authority  of  a 
national  convention  acting  according  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  On  the  9th  of  April  the  Commissioners  left, 
declaring  in  a  letter  that  they  "accepted  the  gage  of  battle. "  As 
yet  there  was  no  decided  policy  in  the  North,  and  prominent  Demo- 
crats like  Douglas  were  not  in  favor  of  compelling  the  seceding  States 
to  remain.  Mr.  Everett  was  preaching  love,  forgiveness  and  union, 
w^hile  the  Confederates  were  seizing  on  "  all  the  arsenals,  forts, 
custom-houses,  post-ofifices,  ships,  ordnance,  and  material  of  war 
belonging  to  the  United  States,  within  the  seceding  States."  In 
fact,  the  South  knew  exactly  what  it  meant  to  do,  and  was  doing  it 
vigorously,  while  the  North  was  entirely  undecided.  In  the  spring 
of  1 86 1,  Congress  had  adjourned  without  making  any  preparations 
for  the  tremendous  and  imminent  crisis. 

Ahraliam  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  102. 

Instructions  to  the  Commander  at  Fort  Sumter 

"War  Department,  Washington,  April  4,  1861. 
"Sir: 

"Your  letter  of  the  ist  instant  occasions  some  anxiety  to  the 
President.  On  the  information  of  Captain  Fox,  he  had  supposed 
you  could  hold  out  till  the  15th  instant  without  any  great  incon- 
venience, and  had  prepared  an  expedition  to  relieve  you  before  that 
period. 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE 


395 


"Hoping  still  that  you  will  be  able  to  sustain  yourself  till  the 
nth  or  12th  instant,  he  has  entire  confidence  that  you  will  act 
as  becomes  a  patriot  and  a  soldier  under  all  circumstances. 

"Whenever,  if  at  all,  in  your  judgment,  to  save  yourself  and 
your  command,  a  capitulation  becomes  necessary,  you  are  author- 
ized to  make  it. 

"Respectfully, 

"Simon  Cameron,  Secretary  of  War. 
"To  Major  Robt.  Anderson,  United  States  Army." 

The  above  was  drafted  by  the  President  and  signed  by  the 
Secretary  of  War. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  262. 

"The"  Slickest  Glass  Hack  in  Town" 

President  Lincoln  had  not  been  in  the  White  House  very  long 
before  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  seized  with  the  idea  that  a  fine  closed 
carriage  would  be  the  proper  thing  for  "the  first  lady  in  the  land.  " 
The  President  did  not  care  much  about  it,  but  told  his  wife  to  order 
whatever  she  wanted. 

Lincoln  forgot  all  about  the  new  vehicle,  so  he  was  overcome 
with  astonishment  one  afternoon  when,  having  acceded  to  Mrs. 
Lincoln's  desire  to  go  driving,  he  found  a  beautiful  shining  carriage 
standing  before  the  door  of  the  White  House.  Mrs.  Lincoln 
watched  him  with  an  amused  smile  while  he  surveyed  it,  but  the 
only  remark  he  made  was: 

"Well,  Mary,  that's  about  the  slickest  glass  hack  in  town, 
isn't  it?" 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories ,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  156. 

Bombardment  and  Surrender  of  Fort  Sumter 

General  Beauregard,  who  commanded  the  Rebel  forces  at 
Charleston,  was  ordered  to  demand  the  instant  surrender  of  Fort 
Sumter.  Major  Anderson  refused  to  comply.  Beauregard,  who 
knew  that  the  garrison  was  nearly  starved  out,  now   asked  the 

Major  when  he  would  evacuate  the  fort Major  Anderson 

replied  that  he  would  evacuate  by  noon  of  the  15th,  unless  before 
that  time  he  should  receive  supplies  or  instructions  from  his  Gov- 
ernment.    But  the  Rebels  knew  that  supplies  were  on  their  way  to 


3^o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  fort  though  the  Major  himself  knew  nothing  about  it.  So  the 
Rebels  sent  an  instant  reply  that  they  should  open  their  batteries 
upon  the  fort  within  one  hour,  unless  the  Major  surrendered. 

The  South  Carolinians  had  been  engaged  for  about  three 
months  in  erecting  batteries  against  this  fort  and  strengthening 

those  already  there All  this  had  been  going  on  under  the 

Major's  eyes,  but  he  was  powerless  to  stop  it.  .  .  .  The  fort  was 
in  an  unfinished  condition,  with  only  a  few  light  guns  in  position 
when  he  took  possession,  while  the  enemy's  guns  were  of  very 
heavy  calibre.  Thus  the  brave  Major  was  in  a  poor  condition  to 
sustain  a  siege. 

The  Rebel  batteries  began  the  bombardment  on  Friday,  the 
12th  of  April,  at  half-past  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  Major 
took  it  with  the  utmost  coolness,  and  made  every  preparation  for 
the  safety  of  his  men  before  he  allowed  any  return  fire  to  be  made, 
then  defiantly  ran  up  the  glorious  old  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  left  the 
enemy  to  bang  away,  while  he  made  preparations  for  breakfast. 
At  half  past  six  the  garrison  all  partook  of  this  meal  as  leisurely  as 
though  nothing  was  the  matter.  After  breakfast  Major  Anderson 
divided  his  men  into  three  reliefs;  each  relief  was  to  work  four 
hours  at  a  time.  .  .  .  All  this  time  the  Rebels  had  been  pouring 
shot  and  shell  into  the  fort. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  garrison  was  ready  to  reply.  .  .  .  During 
the  first  four  hours  the  firing  was  kept  up  with  such  rapidity  that 
the  Rebels  thought  the  fort  must  have  been  secretly  reinforced. 
The  enthusiasm  of  the  men  was  great.  .  .  .  Meanwhile  the  scene 
within  the  fort  became  terrific.  Heavy  splinters  of  wood  and  iron 
were  flying  in  every  direction ;  red-hot  shot  came  pouring  in,  setting 
the  wood-work  on  fire,  blinding  and  suffocating  the  men  with  the 
smoke;  thirty-two  pounders  tore  up  the  ground  at  their  feet,  cov- 
ering them  with  mud  and  earth,  and  a  ninety-six  pounder  came 
bursting  in  just  above  the  magazine. 

On  Friday,  while  the  fire  was  at  its  hottest,  somebody  looking  ' 
through  the  port-holes  descried  the  vessel  of  the  fleet  which  the 
President  had  sent.  Our  ships  were  off  the  bar  and  dipped  their 
flag.  Major  Anderson  ordered  Fort  Sumter's  flag  to  be  dipped  in 
return ;  his  order  was  obeyed  by  some  of  our  brave  fellows,  amid 
the  bursting  of  shells  in  every  direction. 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  397 

About  noon,  on  Friday,  it  was  discovered  that  all  the  cartridges 
were  used  up.  Thereupon  the  men  stripped  off  their  shirt-sleeves, 
tore  up  their  sheets  and  blankets,  and  a  party  of  five  shut  themselves 
up  in  a  magazine  and  began  to  sew  for  dear  life,  making  cartridges, 
and  at  it  they  kept  until  every  available  piece  of  cloth  in  the  fort 
had  been  used.  At  last,  Major  Anderson,  fearing  that  the  magazine 
would  be  entirely  surrounded  with  flames,  set  the  men  to  work  taking 
out  the  powder.     They   rolled   out  ninety-six  barrels  through  the 

raging  fire,  at  the  peril  of  their  lives All  the  wood -work 

within  the  fort  now  burned  so  rapidly  that  it  was  useless  to  attempt 
to  put  it  out,  and  the  danger  became  so  great  that  all  this  powder 
had  to  be  thrown  into  the  sea,  except  three  barrels,  which  the  men 
managed  to  protect  with  wet  mattresses. 

The  smoke  was  now  so  thick  that  the  men  could  not  see  one 
another,  and  they  were  obliged  to  cover  their  mouths  with  wet 
cloths  and  throw  themselves  on  the  ground,  faces  downward,  in 
order  to  breathe.  They  had  nothing  to  eat  but  salt  pork,  which  was 
served  to  them  at  the  guns.  Thus  these  brave  men  fought  on  for 
thirty -four  hours.  At  length  the  flagstaff  was  shot  away.  .  .  One 
of  the  officers  rushed  out  and  brought  away  the  flag,  nailed  it  to 
the  staff,  and  planted  it  on  the  ramparts. 

About  this  time  General  Wigfall  came  up  to  one  of  the  em- 
brasures with  his  handherchief  tied  to  his  sword  for  a  flag  of  truce, 
and,  in  the  name  of  General  Beauregard,  demanded  the  surrender  of 
the  fort.  Major  Anderson,  thinking  it  would  be  madness  to  remain 
any  longer,  acceded  to  Beauregard's  demand,  and  marched  out  of 
the  fort  on  Sunday  afternoon,  with  colors  flying  and  drums  beating, 
bringing  away  all  company  and  private  property,  and  saluting  the 
dear  old  flag  with  fifty  guns.  [The  men  had  spent  Sunday  morning 
making  cartridges  with  which  to  fire  this  salute.]  When  the  last 
gun  was  fired  the  flag  was  lowered ;  but  some  of  its  brave  defenders 
lived  to  see  it  raised  again.  At  the  firing  of  the  last  gun  an  accident 
happened,  by  which  one  man  was  killed  and  several  were  wounded. 
This  was  the  only  death  at  the  fort  during  the  bombardment, 
although  several  men  were  wounded  at  different  times  within  the 
fort. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  139, 


398  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"A  Live  Coal  on  the  Heart  of  the  American  People" 

This  first  firing  on  the  American  flag  acted  like  the  tap  of  the 
drum,  calling  all  the  South  to  arms  in  a  frenzy,  and  sweeping  away 
all  the  remnants  of  attachment  to  the  old  Union  lingering  in  it. 
But  the  North  was,  to  their  amazement,  not  paralyzed  or  struck 
down,  nor  did  the  Democratic  sympathizers  with  the  South  arise 
and  crush  "  Lincoln  and  his  minions.  "  On  the  contrary,  the  news 
of  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  was  "  a  live  coal  on  the  heart  of  the  Amer- 
ican people ; "  and  such  a  tempest  of  rage  swept  in  a  day  over 
millions  as  had  never  before  been  witnessed  in  America.  Those 
who  can  recall  the  day  on  which  the  news  of  the  insult  to  the  flag 
was  received,  and  how  it  was  received,  have  the  memory  of  the 
greatest  conceivable  outburst  of  patriotic  passion.  For  a  time,  all 
party  feelings  were  forgotten;  there  was  no  more  thought  of  for- 
giveness, or  suffering  secession ;  the  whole  people  rose  up  and  cried 
out  for  war. 

Hitherto,  the  press  had  railed  at  Lincoln  for  wanting  a  policy ; 
and  yet  if  he  had  made  one  step  towards  suppressing  the  Rebels, 
"  a  thousand  Northern  newspapers  w^ould  have  pounced  upon  him 
as  one  provoking  war."  Now,  however,  his  policy  w^as  formed, 
shaped,  and  made  glowing  hot  by  one  terrible  blow. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  104. 

First  Call  for  75,000  Men 

On  April  15,  1861,  he  issued  a  proclamation  announcing  that, 
as  the  laws  of  the  United  States  were  being  opposed,  and  the  exe- 
cution thereof  obstructed  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama, 
Florida,  Mississippi,  Louisiana  and  Texas,  by  combinations  too 
powerful  to  be  suppressed  by  the  ordinary  course  of  judicial  pro- 
ceedings, he,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  called  forth  the 
militia  of  the  several  States  of  the  Union,  to  the  aggregate  of  75,000, 
in  order  to  suppress  said  combinations,  and  to  cause  the  laws  tc  be 
duly  executed. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  105. 

Virginia  Secedes  and  Seizes  Harper's  Ferry 

But  if  Sumter  unified  the  sentiment  of  the  North,  it  did  no 
less  for  the  South.     Henceforth  there  was  but  one  voice  in  the 


400  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Southern  States,  and  that  for  the  Confederacy In  Vir- 
ginia a  convention  was  in  session  whose  members  up  to  that  day 
were  in  the  main  for  the  Union.  On  April  1 7  that  convention  passed 
an  ordinance  of  secession. 

The  next  day  the  arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry  was  seized  by  the 
State,  and  the  Southern  Confederacy  at  Montgomery  was  informed 
that  Virginia  was  open  to  its  troops.  The  line  of  hostility  had 
reached  the  very  boundaries  of  Washington.  The  bluffs  across  the 
Potomac,  now  beautiful  in  the  first  green  of  spring,  on  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  looked  every  morning  from  his  window  in  the  White  House, 
were  no  longer  in  his  country.     They  belonged  to  the  enemy. 

With  the  news  of  the  secession  of  Virginia  there  reached  Wash- 
ington on  Thursday,  April  18,  a  rumor  that  a  large  Confederate 
force  was  marching  on  the  city.  Now  there  were  not  more  than 
2500  armed  men  in  Washington.  Regiments  were  known  to  be  on 
their  way  from  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts,  but  nobody  could 

say  when  they  would  arrive Women  and  children  were 

sent  out  of  the  city.  At  the  White  House,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  urged 
to  go  with  her  boys,  but  she  refused  positively. 

"  I  am  as  safe  as  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  I  shall  not  leave  him, "  was 
her  stout  answer. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  36. 

Patriots'  Day,  1861 

Governors  and  legislatures  vied  with  each  other  in  proffers  of 
men  and  money  to  the  Government.  The  Governor  of  Rhode 
Island,  who  was  not  a  Republican,  not  only  promptly  raised  the 
quota  of  men  required,  but  actually  led  it  to  Washington  and  to  the 
battlefield.  The  same  feeling  of  self-sacrificing  patriotism  nerved 
the  heart  and  arm  of  privates  as  well  as  officers. 

"Among  the  privates  in  Rhode  Island's  first  regiment  was  one 
worth  a  million  dollars,  who  destroyed  a  passage  ticket  for  a  voyage 
to  Europe  on  a  tour  of  observation  and  pleasure,  to  shoulder  a 
musket  in  defense  of  his  country  and  her  laws." 

On  marched  the  loyal  soldiers  of  New  England  to  defend  the 
Capital  of  their  country.  As  Governor  Andrew  said  to  the  Mayor  of 
Baltimore, 

"Their  march  through  New  York  was  triumphal. " 


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From  r/ie  L»/^  o/  Abra/tam  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

MRS.  MARY  TODD  LINCOLN 
Wife  of  the  President. 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  401 

But  "bloody  Baltimore"  chose  to  re-enact  the  scenes  of  the 
1 9th  of  April,  1775,  and  on  the  1 9th  of  April,  1 86 1 , 

"  The  streets  our  soldier-fathers  trod 
Blushed  with  their  children's  gore; 
We  saw  the  craven  rulers  nod 
And  dip  in  blood  the  civic  rod. 
Shall  such  things  be,  0  righteous  God ! 

In  Baltimore?"  Sayard  Taylor. 

Abraliam  Lincoln,  His  Life  and  Public  Services,  Mrs.  P.  A.  Hanaford,  page  38. 

Maryland  Protests 

The  confusion  and  alarm  of  the  city  [Washington]  was  greatly 
increased  on  Friday  by  news  received  from  Baltimore.  The  Sixth 
Massachusetts,  en  route  to  the  Capital,  had  reached  there  that  day, 
and  had  been  attacked  as  it  marched  through  by  a  mob  of  Southern 
sympathizers.  Four  of  its  members  had  been  killed  and  many 
wounded. 

"  No  troops  should  go  through  Maryland,  "  the  people  of  Balti- 
more declared,  "whose  purpose  was  to  invade  Virginia  and  coerce 
sister  States. " 

That  evening  about  five  o'clock  the  regiment  reached  Washing- 
ton. Dusty,  torn,  and  bleeding,  they  marched  two  by  two  through 
a  great  crowd  of  silent  people  to  the  Capitol.  Behind  them  there 
came,  in  single  line,  seventeen  stretchers  bearing  the  wounded. 
The  dead  had  been  left  behind. 

Early  the  next  day,  Saturday,  the  20th,  a  delegation  of  Balti- 
more men  appeared  at  the  White  House.  They  had  come  to  beg 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  bring  no  more  troops  through  their  city.  After  a 
long  discussion,  he  sent  them  away  with  a  note  to  the  Maryland 
authorities,  suggesting  that  the  troops  be  marched  around  Balti- 
more. But  as  he  gave  them  the  letter,  Mr.  Nicolay  heard  him  say 
laughingly : 

"If  I  grant  you  this  concession,  that  no  troops  shall  pass 
through  the  city,  you  will  be  back  here  to-morrow,  demanding  that 
none  shall  fee  marched  around  it." 

The  President  was  right.  That  afternoon,  and  again  on  Sun- 
day and  Monday,  committees  sought  him,  protesting  that  Maryland 

3^ 


402  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


soil  should  not  be  "polluted"  by  the  feet  of  soldiers  marching 
against  the  South.     The  President  had  but  one  reply: 

"We  must  have  troops;  and  as  they  can  neither  crawl  under 
Maryland  nor  fly  over  it  they  must  come  across  it.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  37. 

Room  to  Bury  Seventy-five  Thousand 

Some  secession  sympathizers  went  to  see  the  President,  and 
told  him  they  thought  there  ought  to  be  a  cessation  of  hostilities 
until  Congress  should  assemble ;  they  also  told  him  that  if  any  more 
troops  should  be  marched  through  Maryland,  seventy-five  thousand 
persons  would  contest  their  passage.  President  Lincoln  very 
quietly  replied  .  .  .  that  there  would  be  no  cessation  of  hostilities 
until  the  Rebellion  was  crushed,  and  he  presumed  there  was  room 
enough  on  the  soil  of  Maryland  to  bury  seventy-five  thousand  men. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  161. 

"Why  Don't  They  Come!  " 

By  Tuesday,  April  23,  a  new  terror  was  added  to  the  situation — 
that  of  famine.  The  country  around  had  been  scoured  for  pro- 
visions, and  supplies  were  getting  short.  If  Washington  was  to 
be  besieged,  as  it  looked,  what  was  to  be  done  about  food?  The 
Government  at  once  ordered  that  the  flour  at  the  Georgetown  mills, 
some  25,000  barrels,  be  seized  and  sold  according  to  the  discretion 
of  the  military  authorities. 

In  its  distress  it  was  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  the  city  turned.  The 
fiber  of  the  man  began  to  show  at  once.  Bayard  Taylor  happened 
to  be  in  Washington  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  alarm,  and  called 
on  the  President. 

"His  demeanor  was  thoroughly  calm  and  collected,"  Taylor 
wrote  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  "and  he  spoke  of  the  present  crisis 
with  that  solemn,  earnest  composure  which  is  the  sign  of  a  soul  not 
easily  perturbed.  I  came  away  from  his  presence  cheered  and 
encouraged. " 

However,  the  suspense  of  the  days  when  the  Capital  was 
isolated,  the  expected  troops  not  arriving,  and  an  hourly  attack 
feared,  wore  on  Mr.  Lincoln  greatly. 

"  I  begin  to  believe,  "  Mr.  Hay  heard  him  say  bitterly,  one  day. 


(403) 


464  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


to  some  Massachusetts  soldiers,  "that  there  is  no  North.  The 
Seventh  Regiment  (New  York)  is  a  myth.  Rhode  Island  is  an- 
other.    You  are  the  only  real  thing. " 

And  again,  after  pacing  the  floor  of  his  deserted  offlce  for  a  half 
hour,  he  was  heard  to  exclaim  to  himself,  in  an  anguished  tone: 

"Why  don't  they  come!     Why  don't  they  come!" 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  39. 

Another  Call  for  Soldiers 

In  a  few  days  it  was  evident  that  the  Rebellion  was  assuming 
colossal  proportions,  and  therefore  President  Lincoln,  on  May  3d, 
issued  another  call  for  42,000  three-year  volunteers,  and  ordered  the 
addition  of  22,114  officers  and  men  to  the  regular  army,  and  18,000 
seamen  to  the  navy.  This  demand  was  promptly  responded  to.  .  . 
On  the  1 8th  of  April,  a  plot  had  been  discovered  by  which  the 
secessionists  in  Washington,  aided  by  Virginia,  hoped  to  fire  the 
city,  seize  the  President  and  Cabinet,  and  all  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment. By  prompt  action,  this  plan  was  crushed.  A  part  of  it 
was  to  burn  the  railway  bridges,  and  make  the  roads  impassable, 
and  this  was  successfully  executed. 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  this  audacious  attack,  the  Democratic  press 
of  the  North  and  the  Rebel  organs  of  the  South  continued  to  storm 
at  the  President  for  irritating  the  secessionists.  .  .  .  But  at  this 
time  several  events  occurred  which  caused  great  anger  among  loyal 
men;  one  was  the  loss  of  the  great  national  armory  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  and  also  of  Gosport  Navy  Yard,  with  2,000  cannon  and  several 
large  ships.  Owing  to  treachery  this  navy  yard,  with  about  ten 
million  dollars' worth  of  property,  was  lost 

During  this  month  the  War  was,  to  a  degree,  organized. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  AboUtioti  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  iii. 

Robert  E.  Lee's  Account  of  the  Offer  of  Command  of  the 

Union  Army 

I  have  never  seen  the  account  (of  the  offer  to  General  Lee  of 
the  command  of  the  Federal  army)  just  as  I  had  it  from  Mr.  Blair. 
The  following  is  an  accurate — I  think  a  very  nearly  verbatim — report 
of  it: 

Mr.  Blair;    I  come  to  you  on  the  part  of  President  Lincoln  to 


/*/'>t. 


;; 


J^ 


t^^-Ki  e^o 


t.--/^ 


PREAMBLE  OF  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  "  C  S.  A. " 

(405)  - 


4o6  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

ask  whether  any  inducement  that  he  can  offer  will  prevail  on  you 
to  accept  the  command  of  the  Union  army. 

Colonel  Lee  :  If  I  owned  the  four  millions  of  slaves,  I  would 
cheerfully  sacrifice  them  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  but  to 
lift  my  hand  against  my  own  State  and  people  is  impossible. 

The  most  valuable  testimony  concerning  this  question,  howevet 
is  that  of  General  Lee  himself,  as  given  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
Reverdy  Johnson  of  date  February  25,  1868.  In  this  letter  he  uses 
the  following  language : 

"  I  never  intimated  to  any  one  that  I  desired  the  command  of 
the  United  States  Army,  nor  did  I  ever  have  a  conversation  but  with 
one  gentleman,  Mr.  Francis  Preston  Blair,  on  the  subject,  which  was 
at  his  invitaton,  and,  as  I  understood,  at  the  instance  of  President 
Lincoln. 

"  After  listening  to  his  remarks  I  declined  the  offer  he  made  me 
to  take  command  of  the  army  that  was  to  be  brought  into  the  field, 
stating,  as  candidly  and  courteously  as  I  could,  that,  though  opposed 
to  secession  and  deprecating  war,  I  could  take  no  part  in  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Southern  States. 

"  I  w^ent  directly  from  the  interview  with  Mr.  Blair  to  the  office 
of  General  Scott — told  him  of  the  proposition  that  had  been  made 
to  me  and  my  decision.  Upon  reflection  after  returning  home,  I 
concluded  that  I  ought  no  longer  to  retain  any  commission  I  held 
in  the  United  States  army,  and  on  the  second  morning  thereafter 
I  forwarded  my  resignation  to  General  Scott 

"Two  days  afterward,  on  the  invitation  of  the  Governor  of 
Virginia,  I  repaired  to  Richmond,  found  that  the  convention  then 
in  session  had  passed  the  ordinance  withdrawing  the  State  from 
the  Union,  and  accepted  the  commission  of  commander  of  its  forces 
which  was  tendered  me.     These  are  the  simple  facts  of  the  case." 

Memoirs  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  A.  L.  Long  (formerly  Military  Secretary  to  General  Lee),  page  92. 

Mild  Measures  and  How  They  Were  Received 

Governor  Hicks  of  Maryland  suggested  to  President  Lincoln 
that  the  controversy  between  North  and  South  might  be  referred  to 
Lord  Lyons,  the  British  Minister,  for  arbitration.  .  .  .  The  Presi- 
dent replied,  through  Mr.  Seward,    ....... 

"That  no  domestic  contention  whatever  that  may  arise  among 
the  parties  of  this  Republic  ought  in  any  case  to  be  referred  to  any 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  407 

foreign  arbitrament,  least  of  all  to  the  arbitrament  of  a  European 
monarchy. " 

It  is  certain  that  by  his  humane  and  wise  policy,  which  many 
attributed  to  cowardice,  President  Lincoln  prevented  much  blood- 
shed and  devastation,  but  also  preserved  the  State  of  Maryland. 
In  such  a  crisis  harshly  aggressive  measures  in  Maryland  would 
have  irritated  millions  on  the  border,  and  perhaps  have  brought 
the  War  farther  north.  As  it  was,  peace  and  order  were  soon 
restored  in  Baltimore,  when  the  regular  use  of  the  highway  through 
that  city  was  resumed. 

On  the  19th  of  April,  1861,  the  President  issued  another  proc- 
lamation, declaring  the  blockade  of  the  ports  of  the  seceding  States. 
This  was  virtually  an  answer  to  one  from  Jefferson  Davis,  offering 
letters  of  marque  to  all  persons  "who  might  desire  to  aid  the  Rebel 
government,  and  enrich  themselves  by  depredations  upon  the  rich 
and  extended  commerce  of  the  United  States."  It  may  be  re- 
marked that  the  first  official  words  of  Jefferson  Davis  were  singu- 
larly ferocious,  threatening  fire,  brigandage  and  piracy,  disguised  as 
privateering,  in  all  their  terrors. 

It  may  be  doubted  if  there  was  in  those  wild  days  in  all  North 
America  one  man  who  to  such  wise  forbearance  added  such  firmness 
and  moral  courage  as  President  Lincoln  manifested.  By  it  he  pre- 
served Maryland,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  and  if  mod- 
eration could  have  availed,  he  might  have  kept  Virginia. 

Strange  as  it  seems,  while  the  seceding  States  were  threatening 
officially,  and  hastening  to  carry  out  all  the  outrages  of  war,  the 
Legislature  of  Virginia  resolved  that  President  Lincoln's  mild 
message  announced  a  policy  of  tyranny  and  "  coercion,  "  and  in  spite 
of  the  gentlest  letter  of  explanation  ever  wTitten  by  any  ruler  who 
was  not  a  coward,  the  State  (East  Virginia)  marched  out  of  the 
Union  with  drums  beating  and  flags  flying. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  107. 

"  Renting  Rooms  While  the  House  is  on  Fire  '* 

When,  on  his  first  arrival  in  Washington  as  President,  Lincoln 
found  himself  besieged  by  office-seekers  while  the  War  was  breaking 
out,  he  said : 

"  I  feel  like  a  man  letting  lodgings  at  one  end  of  the  house  while 
the  other  end  is  on  fire. " 

"  Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories.  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  384. 


4o8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

How  Some  Good  Boston  People  Looked  upon  Lincoln 

Among  my  recollections  of  this  period  I  especially  cherish  that 
of  an  interview  with  President  Abraham  Lincoln,  arranged  for  us 
by  our  kind  friend,  Governor  Andrew.  The  President  was  laboring 
at  this  time  under  a  terrible  pressure  of  doubt  and  anxiety.  He 
received  us  in  one  of  the  drawing  rooms  of  the  White  House,  where 
we  were  invited  to  take  seats,  in  full  view  of  Stuart's  portrait  of 
Washington.  The  conversation  took  place  mostly  between  the 
President  and  Governor  Andrew.  I  remember  well  the  sad  expres- 
sion of  Mr.  Lincoln's  deep  blue  eyes,  the  only  feature  of  his  face 
which  could  be  called  other  than  plain.  Mrs.  Andrew,  being  of  the 
company,  inquired  when  we  could  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  and  Mr,  Lincoln  named  to  us  the  day  of  her  reception.  He 
said  to  Governor  Andrew,  a  propos  of  I  know  not  what,  "  I  once 
heerd  'George'  Sumner  tell  a  story."  The  unusual  pronunication 
fixed  in  my  memory  this  one  unimportant  sentence.  The  talk, 
indeed,  ran  mostly  on  indifferent  topics. 

When  we  had  taken  leave,  and  were  out  of  hearing,  Mr.  (James 
Freeman)   Clarke  said  of  Mr.   Lincoln, 

"  We  have  seen  it  in  his  face;  hopeless  honesty — that  is  all!" 

He  said  it  as  if  he  felt  that  it  was  far  from  enough. 

None  of  us  knew  then — how  could  we  have  known? — how 
deeply  God's  wisdom  had  touched  and  inspired  that  devout  and 
patient  soul.  At  the  moment  few  people  praised  or  trusted  him. 
"Why  did  he  not  do  this,  or  that,  or  the  other?  He  a  President 
indeed!  Look  at  this  war,  dragging  on  so  slowly!  Look  at  our 
many  defeats  and  rare  victories ! ' '  Such  was  the  talk  that  one  con- 
stantly heard  regarding  him.  The  most  charitable  held  that  he 
meant  well.  Governor  Andrew  was  one  of  the  few  whose  faith  in 
him  never  wavered. 

Reminiscences,  Julia  Ward  Howe,  page  271. 

"Undertaking  to  Frighten  the  Devil  with  Cold  Pitch" 

The  reserve  with  which  he  (Lowell)  speaks  of  the  President's 
policy  is  the  wise  tone  to  be  adopted  in  a  private  article.  In  his 
private  letters,  w^here  such  caution  is  not  needed,  he  gives  expression 
openly  to  his  impatience.     In  a  letter   ...   he  says : 

"I  confess  that  my  opinion  of  the  Government  does  not  rise,  to 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  409 

say  the  least.  If  we  are  saved  it  will  be  God's  doing,  not  man's; 
and  will  He  save  those  who  are  not  worth  saving?  Lincoln  may  be 
right,  for  aught  I  know, — prudence  is  certainly  a  good  drag  upon 
virtue, — but  I  guess  an  oimce  of  Fremont  is  worth  a  pound  of  long 
Abraham.  Mr.  Lincoln  seems  to  have  the  theory  of  carrying  on 
war  without  hurting  the  enemy.  He  is  incapable,  apparently,  of 
understanding  that  they  ought  to  be  hurt.  The  doing  good  to  those 
that  despitefully  entreat  us  was  not  meant  for  enemies  of  the  com- 
monwealth. The  devil's  angels  are  those  that  do  his  work,  and  for 
such  there  is  a  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone  prepared.  We  have  been 
undertaking  to  frighten  the  devil  with  cold  pitch." 

yatnes  Russell  Lowell,  Horace  E.  Scudder,  page  29. 

A  Courteous  Repulse 

There  was  an  ignorant  man  who  once  applied  to  President 
Lincoln  for  the  post  of  Doorkeeper  to  the  House.  This  man  had  no 
right  to  ask  Lincoln  for  anything.  It  was  necessary  to  repulse 
him.  But  Lincoln  repulsed  him  gently  and  whimsically,  without 
hurting  his  feelings,  in  this  way  : 

"  So  you  want  to  be  Doorkeeper  to  the  House,  eh? " 

"Yes,  Mr.  President." 

"Well,  have  you  ever  been  a  doorkeeper?  Have  you  ever  had 
any  experience  in  doorkeeping  ? " 

"Well,  no — no  actual  experience,  sir." 

"Any  theoretical  experience?  Any  instructions  in  the  duties 
and  ethics  of  doorkeeping  ? 

"Um— no." 

"Have  you  ever  attended  lectures  on  doorkeeping?" 

"No,  sir." 

"  Have  you  read  any  text-books  on  the  subject? " 

"No." 

"  Have  you  conversed  with  any  one  who  has  read  such  a  book? " 

"No,  sir;  I'm  afraid  not,  sir. " 

"Well,  then,  my  friend,  don't  you  see  that  you  haven't  a  single 
qualification  for  this  important  post?"  said  Lincoln,  in  a  reproach- 
ful tone. 

"Yes,  I  do,"  said  the  applicant,  and  he  took  leave  hiombly, 
almost  gratefully. 

Clipping  from  a  Scrap-book. 


410  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Douglas's  Warning  to  the  President 

At  this  time  there  occurred  an  interesting  private  incident  in 
Lincoln's  life.  His  old  adversary,  Judge  Douglas,  whom  he  warmly 
respected  as  a  brave  adversary,  had  passed  his  life  in  pandering  to 
slavery,  and,  as  regards  the  War,  had  been  the  political  Mephis- 
topheles  who  had  made  much  of  the  mischief.  But  when  Sumter 
was  fired  on,  all  that  was  good  and  manly  in  his  nature  was  aroused, 
and  he  gave  all  his  support  to  his  old  enemy.  "  During  the  brief 
remainder  of  his  life,  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  his  country  was 
unwearied.  He  was  done  with  his  dreams  of  power,  "  but  he  could 
yet  do  good.  He  was  of  service  in  inducing  great  numbers  of 
Democrats,  who   still   remained    proslavery  men  in  principle,  to 

fight    for    the    Union Judge    Douglas    warned    the 

President  .  .  .  that,  instead  of  calling  on  the  country  for  75,000 
men,  he  should  have  asked  for  200,000. 

"You  do  not  know  the  dishonest  purposes  of  those  men  as  I 
do,  "  he  impressively  remarked. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  page  no. 

The  Last  Time  Lincoln  Ever  Saw  Douglas. 

"One  day  Douglas  came  rushing  in,"  said  Lincoln,  "and  said 
he  had  just  got  a  telegraph  dispatch  from  some  friends  in  Illinois 
urging  him  to  come  out  and  help  set  things  right  in  'Egypt '  (South- 
ern Illinois).  He  said  that  he  would  go,  or  stay  in  Washington,  just 
where  I  thought  he  could  do  the  most  good. 

"  I  told  him  to  do  as  he  choose,  but  that  probably  he  could  do 
best  in  Illinois.  Upon  that  he  shook  hands  with  me,  and  hurried 
dway  to  catch  the  next  train.     I  never  saw  him  again.  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  1 16. 

"I  Don't  Care— if  You  will  Fight  for  the  Country" 

I  called  on  Lincoln  at  the  White  House  to  make  acknowledg- 
ments for  my  appointment  as  a  Major-General.  When  he  handed 
me  the  commission,  with  some  kindly  words  of  compliment,  I 
replied : 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  I  ought  to  accept  this.  I  received  my 
orders  to  prepare  my  brigade  to  march  to  Washington  while  trying 
a  cause  to  a  jury.  I  stated  the  fact  to  the  court  and  asked  that  the 
case  might  be  continued,  which  was  at  once  consented  to,  and  I  left, 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE  411 

to  come  here  the  second  morning  after,  my  business  in  utter  con- 
fusion. "     He  said: 

"I  guess  we  both  wish  we  were  back  trying  cases,"  with  a 
quizzical  look  upon  his  countenance. 

I  said:  "  Besides,  Mr,  President,  you  may  not  be  aware  that  I 
was  the  Breckenridge  candidate  for  Governor  of  my  State  in  the  last 
campaign,  and  did  all  I  could  to  prevent  your  election." 

"All  the  better,"  said  he.  "I  hope  your  example  will  bring 
many  of  the  same  sort  with  you. " 

"But,"  I  answered,  "  I  do  not  think  that  I  can  support  the 
measures  of  your  administration,  Mr.  President." 

"  I  do  not  care  whether  you  do  or  not,  "  was  the  reply,  "if  you 
will  fight  for  the  country." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  139. 

"  No  Other  Nations  *  Sneakin'  Round '  " 

The  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  one  day  solemnly  debating 
a  rather  serious  international  problem.  The  President  was  in  the 
minority,  as  was  frequently  the  case,  and  he  was  "  in  a  hole,  "  as  he 
afterwards  expressed  it.  He  didn't  want  to  argue  the  points  raised, 
preferring  to  settle  the  matter  in  a  hurry,  and  an  apt  story  was 
his  only  salvation. 

Suddenly  the  President's  face  brightened, 

"Gentlemen,"  said  he,  addressing  those  seated  at  the  Cabinet 
table,  "the  situation  just  now  reminds  me  of  a  fix  I  got  into  some 
thirty  years  ago  when  I  was  peddling  'notions'  on  the  way  from 
Indiana  to  Illinois.  I  didn't  have  a  large  stock,  but  I  charged  large 
prices,  and  I  made  money.  Perhaps  you  don't  see  what  I'm 
driving  at  ? " 

Secretary  of  State  Seward  was  wearing  a  most  gloomy  expres- 
sion ;  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Chase  was  indifferent  and  cynical, 
while  the  others  of  the  Presidential  advisers  resigned  themselves  to 
hearing  the  inevitable  "story." 

"  I  don't  propose  to  argue  this  matter,"  the  President  went  on 
to  say,  ...  "  but  this  little  story  of  mine  will  make  some  things 
which  are  now  in  the  dark  show  up  more  clearly 

"Just  before  we  left  Indiana  and  were  crossing  into  Illinois," 
continued  Mr.  Lincoln  solemnly,  .  .  .  ."we  came  across  a  small 
farmhouse  full  of  children.     These  ranged  in  age  from  seventeen 


412  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

years  to  seventeen  months,  and  all  were  in  tears.  The  mother 
of  the  family  was  red-headed  and  red-faced,  and  the  whip  she  held 
in  her  right  hand  led  to  the  inference  that  she  had  been  chastis- 
ing her  brood.  The  father  of  the  family,  a  meek-looking,  mild- 
mannered,  tow-headed  chap,  was  standing  in  the  front  door, — to 
all  appearances  awaiting  his  turn 

"  I  thought  there  wasn't  much  use  in  asking  the  head  of  that 
house  if  she  wanted  any  'notions. '  She  was  too  busy.  It  was 
evident  that  an  insurrection  had  been  in  progress,  but  it  was  pretty 

well  quelled  when  I  got  there She  saw  me  when  I  came 

up,  and  from  her  look  I  thought  she  surmised  that  I  intended  to 
interfere.  Advancing  to  the  doorway — roughly  pushing  her  hus- 
band aside — she  demanded  my  business.  . 

" '  Nothing,  ma'am, '  I  answered  as  gently  as  possible.  '  I  merely 
dropped  in,  as  I  came  along,  to  see  how  things  were  going. ' 

"  'Well,  you  needn't  wait,'  she  said  in  an  irritated  way; 
'there's  trouble  here,  and  lots  of  it,  too,  but  I  kin  manage  my  own 
affairs  without  the  help  of  outsiders.  This  is  jest  a  family  row,  but 
I'll  teach  these  brats  their  places  ef  I  hev  to  lick  the  hide  off  ev'ry 
one  of  them.  I  don't  do  much  talkin',  but  I  run  this  house,  an' 
I  don't  want  no  one  sneakin'  round  tryin'  to  find  out  how  I  do  it 
either. ' 

"  That's  the  case  here  with  us, "  the  President  said  in  conclusion. 
"We  must  let  the  other  nations  know  that  we  propose  to  settle  our 
family  row  in  our  own  way,  an'  teach  these  brats  (the  seceding 
States)  their  places,  if  we  have  to  '  lick  the  hide  off '  each  and  every 
one  of  them.  And,  like  the  old  woman,  we  don't  want  any 
'sneakin'  round'  by  other  countries  that  would  like  to  find  out 
how  we  are  to  do  it,  either.  Now,  Seward,  you  write  some  diplo- 
matic notes  to  that  effect.  " 

And  the  Cabinet  session  closed. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yams  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  430. 

"I  Guess  Mary  Will  Have  Something  for  Us  to  Eat" 

Before  parting  I  told  Mr.  Lincoln  that  I  had  a  German  brother- 
in-law  with  me  in  Washington,  Mr.  Henry  Meyer,  a  young  merchant 
from  Hamburg,  and  an  ardent  friend  of  this  coimtry,  who  would  be 
proud  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  President.  Could  I  bring  him  for 
amomentf   "Certainly,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "bring  him  to-morrow 


AT  THE  HELM  OF  STATE 


413 


about  lunch  time  and  lunch  with  me.  I  guess  Mary  (Mrs.  Lincoln) 
will  have  something  for  us  to  eat. "  Accordingly  the  next  day  I 
brought  my  brother-in-law,  who  was  greatly  astonished  at  this 
unexpected  invitation  to  lunch  with  the  President,  and  much 
troubled  about  the  etiquette  to  be  observed.  I  found  it  difficult 
to  quiet  him  with 
the  assurance 
that  in  this  case 
there  was  no 
etiquette  at  all. 
But  he  was  still 
more  astonished 
when  Mr. Lincoln, 
instead  of  waiting 
for  a  ceremonious 
bow,  shook  him 
by  the  hand 
like  an  old  ac- 
quaintance and 
said  in  his  hearty 
way  that  he  was 
glad  to  see  the 
brother-in-law  of 
"this  young  man 
here, "  and  that 
he  hoped  the 
Americans  treat- 
ed him  well.  Mrs. 
Lincoln  — 
"Mary,"  as  the 
President  again 
called  her — was 
absent,  being 
otherwise  en- 
gaged, and  there  were  no  other  guests.  So  we  had  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
the  table  all  to  ourselves.  He  seemed  to  be  in  excellent  spirits, 
asking  many  questions  about  Hamburg,  which  my  brother-in-law, 
who  spoke  English  fluently,  answered  in  an  entertaining  manner 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  found  several  occasions  for  inserting  funny  stories, 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

LINCOLN  IN  '61. 


414  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

at  which  not  only  we,  but  he  himself,  too,  laughed  most  heartily. 
As  we  left  the  White  House,  my  companion  could  hardly  find  words 
to  express  his  puzzled  admiration  for  the  man  who,  having  risen 
from  the  bottom  of  the  social  ladder  to  one  of  the  most  exalted  sta- 
tions in  the  world,  had  remained  so  perfectly  natural  and  so  abso- 
lutely unconscious  of  how  he  appeared  to  others — a  man  to  whom  it 
did  not  occur  for  a  single  moment  that  a  person  in  his  position 
might  put  on  a  certain  dignity  to  be  alw^ays  maintained,  and  who 
bore  himself  with  such  genial  sincerity  and  kindliness  that  the  dig- 
nity was  not  missed,  and  that  one  would  have  regretted  to  see  him 
different. 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  page  243. 

"The  People  Will  Understand" 

The  eyes  of  princes,  nobles,  aristocrats,  of  dukes,  earls,  scholars, 
statesmen,  warriors,  all  turned  on  the  plain  back^\oodsman  with  his 
simple  sense,  his  imperturbable  simplicity,  his  determined  self- 
reliance,  his  impracticable  and  incorruptible  honesty,  as  he  sat  amid 
the  war  of  conflicting  elements,  with  unpretending  steadiness, 
striving  to  guide  the  national  ship  through  a  channel  at  whose  perils 
the  world's  oldest  statesmen  stood  aghast.  The  brilliant  courts  of 
Europe  leveled  their  opera-glasses  at  the  phenomenon.  Fair 
ladies  saw  that  he  had  horny  hands  and  disdained  white  gloves. 
Dapper  diplomatists  were  shocked  at  his  system  of  etiquette;  but 
all  statesmen,  who  knew  the  terrors  of  that  passage,  were  wiser 
than  court  ladies  and  dandy  diplomatists,  and  watched  him  with  a 
fearful  curiosity,  simply  asking,  "  Will  that  awkward  old  backwoods- 
man really  get  that  ship  through? " 

Sooth  to  say,  our  own  politicians  were  somewhat  shocked  with 
his  state-papers  at  first.  Why  not  let  us  make  them  a  little  more 
conventional,  and  file  them  to  a  classical  pattern? 

"  No,  "  was  his  reply,  "I  shall  write  them  myself.  The  people 
will  understand  them.  " 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe.     The  Watchman  and  Reflector,  Littell's  Living  Age,  Vol. 
LXXX,  February  6,  1864,  page  283. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Defiance,  Disaster,  Sorrow 

News  of  the  First  Battle  of  Bull  Run 

On  Sunday,  July  2 1 ,  when  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  was  fought,  the 
military  telegraph-line  had  reached  Fairfax  Court-house,  and  an 
improvised  office  had  been  opened  at  that  point.  Communication 
with  General  McDowell's  headquarters  at  the  front  was  maintained 
by  means  of  a  corps  of  mounted  couriers,  organized  by  Andrew 
Carnegie,  under  the  immediate  direction  of  William  B.  Wilson,  who 
then  served  as  our  manager.  These  couriers  passed  back  and  forth 
all  day  long  between  Fairfax  and  the  front.  Lincoln  hardly  left 
his  seat  in  our  office  and  waited  with  deep  anxiety  for  each  succeed- 
ing despatch.  At  all  times  during  the  awful  day,  General  Scott  would 
confer  with  the  President  or  Secretary  Cameron  for  a  short  period, 
and  then  depart  to  put  into  effect  some  urgent  measures  for  protect- 
ing the  Capital 

All  the  morning  and  well  along  into  the  afternoon.  General 
McDowell's  telegrams  were  more  or  less  encouraging,  and  Lincoln 
and  his  advisers  waited  with  eager  hope,  believing  that  Beauregard 
was  being  pushed  back  to  Manassas  Junction ;  but  all  at  once  the 
despatches  ceased  coming.  At  first  this  was  taken  to  mean  that 
McDowell  was  moving  farther  away  from  the  telegraph,  and  then, 
as  the  silence  became  prolonged,  a  strange  fear  seized  upon  the 
assembled  watchers  that  perhaps  all  was  not  well.  Suddenly  the 
telegraph-instrument  became  alive  again  and  the  short  sentence 
"Our  army  is  retreating, "  was  spelled  out  in  the  Morse  characters. 
This  brief  announcement  was  followed  by  meager  details  concern- 
ing the  first  great  disaster  that  had  befallen  our  troops  and  the 
panic  that  followed. 

The  crowded  telegraph  office  was  quickly  deserted  by  all  except 
the  operators,  but  Lincoln  returned  at  intervals  until  after  mid- 
night, and  shortly  afterwards  the  outlying  office  at  Fairfax  Court, 
house  was  abandoned.     When  morning  dawned,  our  demoralized 

(4^5) 


bo 

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00 


3 


a 
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a 

9 

w 

c 
O 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  417 

troops  began  to  straggle,  and  then  to  pour,  in  an  ever-increasing 
stream  of  frightened  humanity  over  Long  Bridge  into  Washington, 
the  immediate  capture  of  which  seemed  then  to  be,  and  really 
was,  within  the  power  of  the  Confederate  army,  if  only  they  had 
pressed  their  advantage.  Consternation  reigned  supreme,  and  all 
realized  that  a  great  crisis  of  the  War,  the  next  after  Sumter,  was 
upon  us. 

The  dark  clouds  that  settled  at  that  time  upon  Lincoln's  already 
wrinkled  brow  were  destined  never  to  lift  their  heavy  weight,  except 
for  that  all  too  brief  period  of  exaltation,  just  before  his  tragic  end- 
ing, when  Grant  had  pushed  Lee  to  Appomattox,  and  Richmond 
was  at  last  in  our  hands. 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates,  page  88. 

"  This  Nation  Should  Be  on  the  Lord's  Side  " 

A  member  of  the  church,  at  a  reception,  closed  his  remarks 
with  the  pious  hope  that  "the  Lord  is  on  our  side. " 

"  I  am  not  at  all  concerned  about  that,  "  commented  the  Presi- 
dent, "  for  we  know  that  the  Lord  is  always  on  the  side  of  the  right. 
But  it  is  my  constant  anxiety  and  prayer  that  I  and  this  nation 
should  be  on  the  Lord's  side.  " 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  1 39. 

"  Death-bed  Repentance  a  Big  Thing !" 

The  name  of  a  most  virulent  and  dishonest  official  was  men- 
tioned— one  who,  though  very  brilliant,  was  very  bad. 

"It's  a  big  thing  for  Blank,"  said  Lincoln,  "that  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  death -bed  repentance." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby").    Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  451. 

Stanton's  Early  Abuse  of  the  President 

In  view  ...  of  the  fault-finding  and  distrust  which  then 
marked  the  conduct  of  those  who  stood  nearest  to  the  President, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  an  outsider  so  prejudiced  as  Mr.  Stanton 
should  indulge  in  adverse  criticism. 

"No  one,"  he  wrote  (in  1861),  " can  imagine  the  deplorable 
condition  of  this  city,  and  the  hazard  of  the  government,  who  did 
not  witness  the  weakness  and  panic  of  the  Administration,  and  the 
painful  imbecility  of  Lincoln. "     ,    ,    ,    . 

•9 


4i8  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

During  the  week  that  was  ushered  in  by  the  defeat  at  Bull 
Run,  Mr.  Stanton  wTote: — 

"  The  imbecility  of  this  Administration  culminated  in  that  ca- 
tastrophe ;  an  irretrievable  misfortune  and  national  disgrace,  never 
to  be  forgotten,  are  to  be  added  to  the  ruin  of  all  peaceful  pur- 
suits and  national  bankruptcy,  as  the  result  of  Lincoln's  running 
the  machine  for  five  months.  .  .  .  It  is  not  unlikely  that  some 
change  in  the  War  and  Navy  Departments  may  take  place,  but  none 
beyond  those  two  departments  until  Jeff  Davis  turns  out  the  whole 
concern. " 

This  correspondence  was  not  given  out  until  some  years  after 

the  close  of  the  War Mr.  Stanton,  however,  at  the  time, 

made  no  secret  of  his  hostility According  to  at  least 

two  chroniclers,  he  spoke  of  the  President  as  "a  low,  cunning 
clown. "  According  to  another,  he  habitually  referred  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
as  the  "original  gorilla,  "  and  often  said  that  Du  Chaillu  was  a  fool 
to  wander  all  the  way  to  Africa  in  search  of  w^hat  he  could  easily 
have  found  at  Springfield,  Illinois.  In  short,  from  the  day  of  the 
first  meeting  in  Cincinnati,  until  deep  into  the  first  year  of  the  War, 
he  looked  upon  Lincoln  with  contempt. 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  225. 

"I  Believe  He  Would  Do  It !" 

An  officer,  having  had  some  trouble  with  Sherman,  being  very 
angry,  presented  himself  before  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  visiting  the 
camp,  and  said: 

"  Mr.  President,  I  have  a  cause  of  grievance.  This  morning  I 
went  to  Colonel  Sherman  and  he  threatened  to  shoot  me.  " 

"  Threatened  to  shoot  you?  Well  (in  a  stage  whisper),  if  I  were 
you,  I  wouldn't  trust  him— for  I  believe  he  would  do  it." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  igi. 

"You  Can't  Fool  All  the  People  All  the  Time" 

Lincoln  was  a  strong  believer  in  the  virtue  of  dealing  honestly 
with  the  people. 

"  If  you  once  forfeit  the  confidence  of  your  fellow-citizens,  "  he 
said  to  a  caller  at  the  White  House,  "you  can  never  regain  their 
respect  and  esteem. 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  419 

"It  is  true  you  may  fool  all  the  people  some  of  the  time;  you 
can  even  fool  some  of  the  people  all  the  time ;  but  you  can't  fool  all 
of  the  people  all  the  time.  " 

"Abe"  Lhicoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  184. 

"Darn  You!  Who  Commenced  This  Fuss?" 

President  Lincoln  was  at  all  times  an  advocate  of  peace,  pro- 
vided it  could  be  obtained  honorably  and  with  credit  to  the  United 
States.  As  to  the  cause  of  the  Civil  War,  which  side  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line  was  responsible  for  it,  who  fired  the  first  shots,  who 
were  the  aggressors,  etc.,  Lincoln  did  not  seem  to  bother  about;  he 

wanted,  above  all  things,  to  preserve  the  Union To 

illustrate  his  feeling  in  the  matter  he  said : 

"Now  this  reminds  me  of  a  story  I  heard  once,  when  I  lived 
in  Illinois.  A  vicious  bull  in  a  pasture  took  after  everybody  who 
tried  to  cross  the  lot,  and  one  day  the  neighbor  of  the  owner  was 
the  victim.  This  man  was  a  speedy  fellow  and  got  to  a  friendly 
tree  ahead  of  the  bull,  but  not  in  time  to  climb  the  tree.  So  he  led 
the  enraged  animal  a  merry  race  around  the  tree,  finally  succeeding 
in  getting  the  bull  by  the  tail. 

"  The  bull,  being  at  a  disadvantage,  not  able  either  to  catch  the 
man  or  release  his  tail,  was  mad  enough  to  eat  nails ;  he  dug  up  the 
earth  with  his  feet,  scattered  gravel  all  around,  bellowed  until  you 
could  hear  him  for  two  miles  or  more,  and  at  length  broke  into 
a  dead  run,  the  man  hanging  onto  his  tail  all  the  time. 

"While  the  bull,  much  out  of  temper,  was  legging  it  to  the  best 
of  his  ability,  his  tormentor,  still  clinging  to  the  tail,  asked,  'Darn 
you,  who  commenced  this  fuss?' 

"  It's  our  duty  to  settle  this  fuss  at  the  earliest  possible  moment, 
no  matter  who  commenced  it.     That's  my  idea  of  it.  " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  157, 

"There  Is  a  Man  in  Here  !" 

An  old  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln  once  related  to  me  another  of  his 
stories  which  shows  not  a  little  of  his  character.  This  gentleman 
was  conversing  with  the  President  at  a  time  during  the  War  when 
things  looked  very  dark.     On  taking  leave,  he  asked  the  President 


420  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

what  he  should  say  to  their  friends  in  Kentucky — what  cheering 
news  he  could  give  them  of  him.     Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"That  reminds  me  of  a  man  who  prided  himself  greatly  on  his 
game  of  chess,  having  seldom  been  beaten.  He  heard  of  a  machine 
called  the  'Automaton  Chess  Player, '  which  was  beating  every  one 
■who  played  against  it.  So  he  went  to  try  his  skill  with  the  machine. 
He  lost  the  first  game,  so  with  the  second,  and  the  third.  Then, 
rising  in  astonishment  from  his  seat,  he  walked  around  the  machine 
and  looked  at  it  a  few  minutes.  Then,  stopping  and  pointing  at  it, 
he  exclaimed,  'There  is  a  man  in  there. ' 

"Tell  my  friends,  "  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "there  is  a  man  in  here!" 

Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War,  Brevet  Major-General  E.  D.  Townsend,  page  91. 

"Sugar-Coated"  in  a  President's  Message 

In  the  July  following  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration,  an  extra 
session  of  Congress  was  called.  In  the  message  then  sent  in, 
speaking  of  secession,  and  the  measures  taken  by  the  Southern 
leaders  to  bring  it  about,  there  occurs  the  following  sentence : 

"With  rebellion  thus  sugar-coated,  they  have  been  drugging 
the  public  mind  of  their  section  for  more  than  thirty  years ;  until, 
at  length,  they  have  brought  many  good  men  to  a  willingness  to 
take  up  arms  against  the  Government,  "  etc. 

Mr.  Defrees,  the  Government  printer,  told  me  that  when  the 
message  was  being  printed,  he  was  a  good  deal  disturbed  by  the  use 
of  the  term  "  sugar-coated,  "  and  finally  went  to  the  President  about 

it He  told  Mr.  Lincoln  frankly  that  he  ought  to  remember 

that  a  message  to  Congress  was  a  different  affair  from  a  speech  at 
a  mass-meeting  in  Illinois;  that  the  messages  became  a  part  of 
history,  and  should  be  written  accordingly. 

"  What  is  the  matter  now? "  inquired  the  President. 

"Why,"  said  Mr.  Defrees,  "you  have  used  an  undignified 
expression  in  the  message ; "  and  then,  reading  the  paragraph  aloud, 
he  added,  "  I  should  alter  the  structure  of  that,  if  I  were  you.  " 

"Defrees,  "  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  "that  word  expresses  precisely 
my  idea,  and  I  am  not  going  to  change  it.  The  time  will  never  come 
in  this  country  when  people  won't  know  exactly  what  'sugar-coated* 
means ! " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  1 26. 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW 


421 


"I  Think  I  Can  Beat  You  Both" 

On  another  occasion,  Mr.  Defrees  states  that  a  certain  sentence 
of  another  message  was  very  awkwardly  constructed.  Calling  the 
President's  attention  to  it  in  the  proof  copy,  the  latter  acknowl- 
edged the  force  of  the  objection  raised,  and  said: 

"  Go  home,  Defrees,  and  see  if  you  can  better  it.  " 

The  next  day  Mr.  Defrees  took  in  to  him  his  amendment.  Mr. 
Lincoln  met  him  by  saying : 

"  Seward  found  the  same  fault  that  you  did,  and  he  has  been 
rewriting  the  paragraph  also.  " 

Then  *-eading  Mr.  Defrees's  version,  he  said : 

"I  believe  you  have  beaten  Seward;  but,  T  jings,'  I  think  I 
can  beat  you  both.  " 

Then,  taking  up  his  pen,  he  wrote  the  sentence  as  it  was  finally 
printed. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  181. 

What  Lincoln  Liked  to  Eat 

"  The  President  seemed  never  to  lose  his  relish  for  the  things  he 
liked     w^hen    a     boy. 


a 

He  seemed  especially 
fond  of  bacon.  He 
needed  plenty  of  good, 
strengthening  food,  for 
his  duties  and  cares 
required  almost  super- 
human strength  and 
physical  endurance. 
From  early  in  the 
morning  till  twelve  at 
night,  almost  without 
ceasing,  his  work  went 
on.  He  took  but  little 
fresh  air.  An  occa- 
sional    drive, 


ASKING  FOR  A  PRIVATE  JOB 

a    rare 

horseback  ride,  a  short  w^alk  to  the  War  Department  were  all. 
That  he  didn't  collapse  under  the  terrible  strain  was  almost 
miraculous." 

Related  by  a  confidential  servant  in  the  White  House. 


42  2  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"Whose  Boots  Do  They  Black?" 

Another  foreig-n  nobleman  sought  my  intercession,  of  whose 
genuineness  I  became  fully  convinced.  He  was  a  young  German 
count  whose  identity  was  vouched  for  by  a  member  of  the  Prussian 
Legation.  Moreover,  there  were  no  smartnesses  at  all  in  his  talk. 
He  had  a  long  row  of  ancestors,  whom  he  traced  back  for  several 
hundred  years.  He  was  greatly  impressed  with  the  importance  of 
this  fact,  and  thought  it  would  weigh  heavily  in  securing  him  a 
position  in  our  army.  If  he  could  only  have  an  "audience"  with 
the  President  and  lay  his  case  before  him,  he  believed  the  result 
could  not  be  doubtful.  He  pursued  me  so  arduously  with  the 
request  for  a  personal  introduction  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  at  last  I 
succumbed  and  promised  to  introduce  him,  if  the  President  per- 
mitted. The  President  did  permit.  The  count  spoke  English 
moderately  well,  and  in  his  ingenuous  way  he  at  once  explained  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  how  high  the  nobility  of  his  family  was,  and  that  they 
had  been  counts  so-and-so  many  centuries.  "Well,"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln,  interrupting  him,  "  that  need  not  trouble  you.  That  will 
not  be  in  your  way,  if  you  behave  yourself  as  a  soldier.  "  The  poor 
count  looked  puzzled,  and  when  the  audience  was  over,  he  asked 
me  what  in  the  world  the  President  could  have  meant  by  so  strange 
a  remark. 

Another  saying  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  a  similar  kind,  made  the 
rounds  at  the  time  and  was  very  much  enjoyed.  I  cannot  vouch 
for  the  truth  of  the  anecdote,  but  it  is  so  strikingly  Lincolnesque 
that  there  is  a  strong  probability  in  its  favor.  I  have  never  seen  it 
mentioned  anywhere,  and  so  I  may  be  pardoned  for  inserting  it  here. 
It  was  to  this  effect:  An  Englishman,  who  had  traveled  far  and 
wide  over  the  United  States,  called  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  and  told  him 
of  the  impressions  he  had  received  of  various  parts  of  the  country. 
Speaking  of  social  conditions  and  habits,  he  said,  among  other 
things,  that  to  his  astonishment  he  had  heard  that  many  gentlemen 
in  America  were  in  the  habit  of  blacking  their  own  boots.  "That 
is  true, "  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "but  would  gentlemen  in  your  country 
not  do  that?"  "  No,  certainly  not,  "  the  Englishman  replied  with 
emphasis. 

"Well!"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  quietly,  "whose  boots  do  thev 
black?" 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  page  339. 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  423 


The  Only  Times  He  Ever  Seemed  Happy 

"About  the  only  recreation  he  seemed  to  enjoy  was  romping 
about  the  White  House,  playing  with  Tad;  playing  horse,  blind- 
man's  buff,  and  cantering  through  the  rooms  with  the  boy  on  his 
shoulders,  and  boisterous  games  like  that.  During  those  short 
play -spells  were  the  only  times  the  President  ever  seemed  really 
happy." 

Related  by  a  confidential  servant  in  the  White  House. 

"Blunt  as  a  Meat-Ax  and  Keen  as  a  Razor" 

Those  who  accuse  Lincoln  of  frivolity  never  knew  him,  I 
never  saw  a  more  thoughtful  face.  I  never  saw  a  more  dignified  face. 
He  had  humor  of  which  he  was  totally  unconscious,  but  it  was  not 
frivolity.  He  said  wonderfully  witty  things,  but  never  from  a 
desire  to  be  witty.  His  wit  was  entirely  illustrative.  He  used  it 
because,  and  only  because,  at  times  he  could  say  more  in  this  way, 
and  better  illustrate  the  idea  with  which  he  was  pregnant.  He 
never  cared  how  he  made  a  point  so  that  he  made  it,  and  he  never 
told  a  story  for  the  mere  sake  of  telling  a  story.  When  he  did  it, 
it  was  for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  and  making  clear  a  point.  He 
was  essentially  epigrammatic  and  parabolic.  He  was  a  master  of 
satire,  which  was  at  times  as  blunt  as  a  meat-ax,  and  at  others  as 
keen  as  a  razor,  but  it  was  always  kindly,  except  when  some  horrible 
injustice  was  its  inspiration,  and  then  it  was  terrible.  Weakness 
he  was  never  ferocious  with,  but  intentional  wickedness  he  never 
spared. 

In  this  interview  the  name  came  up  of  a  recently  deceased 
politician  of  Illinois,  whose  undeniable  merit  was  blemished  by 
overweening  vanity.     His  funeral  was  largely  attended: 

"If  General  Blank  had  known  how  big  a  funeral  he  would 
have, "  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  he  would  have  died  years  ago. " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby").     Edited  by  Allen 
Thomdike  Rice,  page  44 1- 

"You  are  Spoiling  the  Bust !" 

A  reference  was  made  to  Jones  the  sculptor.  .  .  .  Looking 
up,  the  President  said ; 


424 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"Jones  tells  a  good  story  of  General  Scott,  of  whom  he  once 

made  a  bust.  Having 
a  fine  subject  to  start 
with,  he  succeeded  in 
giving  great  satisfac- 
tion. At  the  closing 
sitting  he  attempted  to 
define  and  elaborate 
the  lines  and  markings 
of  the  face.  The  Gen- 
eral sat  patiently;  but 
when  he  came  to  see 
the  result,  his  counte- 
nance indicated  decid- 
ed displeasure. 

"  'Why,  Jones, 
what  have  you  been 
doing?'  he  asked. 

"  'Oh,'  rejoined 
the  sculptor, 'not  much, 
I  confess.  General;  I 
have  been  working 
out  the  details  of  the 
face  a  little  more,  this 
morning. ' 

"  'Details,'  ex- 
claimed   the    General 


GENERAL  WINFIELD  SCOTT 


warmly ;  blank  the  details !  Why,  man,  you  are  spoiling  the  bust ! 

Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  34. 


John  C.  Fremont's  Assumptions  of  Authority 

The  most  popular  military  appointment  Lincoln  made  before 
McClellan  was  that  of  John  C.  Fremont  to  the  command  of  the 
Department  of  the  West.  Republicans  appreciated  it,  for  had  not 
Fremont  been  the  first  candidate  for  their  party  for  the  Presidency  ? 
The  West  was  jubilant;  Fremont's  explorations  had  years  before 
made  him  the  hero  of  the  land  along  the  Mississippi.  The  Cabinet 
was  satisfied.    .   .    .    Lincoln  himself  "thought   well  of  Fremont, " 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  425 

believed  he  could  do  the  work  to  be  done ;  and  he  had  already  had 
experience  enough  to  discern  that  his  great  trouble  was  to  be,  not 
finding  major-generals — he  had  "more  pegs  than  holes  to  put  them 
in,"  he  said  one  day— but  finding  major-generals  who  could  do  the 
thing  they  were  ordered  to  do. 

Fremont  had  gone  to  his  headquarters  at  St.  Louis,  Missouri, 
late  in  July.  Before  a  month  had  passed  the  gravest  charges  of 
incompetency  and  neglect  of  duty  were  made  against  him.  It  was 
even  intimated  to  the  President  that  the  General  was  using  his  posi- 
tion to  work  up  a  Northwestern  Confederacy.  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
listened  to  all  these  charges  but  taken  no  action,  when,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  August  30,  he  was  amazed  to  read  it  in  his  newspaper  that 
Fremont  had  issued  a  proclamation  declaring,  among  other  things, 
that  the  property,  real  and  personal,  of  all  persons  in  the  State  of 
Missouri  who  should  take  up  arms  against  the  United  States,  or  who 
should  be'  directly  proved  to  have  taken  an  active  part  with  its 
enemies  in  the  field,  would  be  confiscated  to  public  use  and  their 
slaves,  if  they  had  any,  declared  freemen. 

Fremont's  proclamation  astonished  the  country  as  much  as  it 
did  the  President.  In  the  North  it  elicited  almost  universal  satis- 
faction. This  was  striking  at  the  root  of  the  trouble — slavery. 
But  in  the  Border  States,  particularly  in  Kentucky,  the  Union  party 
was  dismayed.  The  only  possible  method  of  keeping  those  sections 
in  the  Union  was  not  to  interfere  with  slavery.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw 
this  as  clearly  as  his  Border  State  supporters.  It  was  well  known 
that  this  was  his  policy.  He  felt  that  Fremont  had  not  only  defied 
the  policy  of  the  Administration,  he  had  usurped  power  which  be- 
longed only  to  the  legislative  part  of  the  Government.  He  had  a 
good  excuse  for  reprimanding  the  General,  even  for  removing  him. 
Instead,  he  wrote  him,  on  September  2,  a  most  kindly  letter.     .    .    . 

In  the  meantime,  Lincoln's  letter  reached  Fremont.  After  a 
few  days  the  General  replied  that  he  wished  the  President  would 
make  the  general  order  modifying  the  clause  of  the  proclamation 
which  referred  to  the  liberation  of  slaves.  This  letter  he  sent  by  his 
wife,  Jessie  Benton  Fremont,  a  woman  of  ambition  and  of  great 
energy  of  character. 

"While  Fremont  was  in  command  of  the  Department,  Mrs. 
Fremont  was  the  real  chief  of  staff,  "  says  Col.  George  F.  Leighton. 
"She  was  a  woman  of  strong  personality,  having  inherited  much  of 


426  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  brains  and  force  of  character  of  her  distinguished  father,  Senator 
Benton. " 

Mrs.  Fremont  ....  started  East,  deeply  indignant  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  should  ask  her  husband  to  modify  his  proclamation. 
When  she  reached  Washington,  she  learned  that  Mr.  Blair  had  gone 
to  St.  Louis.  Jumping  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  with  an  order 
to  remove  her  husband  she  hastened  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  was  mid- 
night, but  the  President  gave  her  an  audience.  Without  waiting 
for  an  explanation  she  violently  charged  him  with  sending  an  enemy 
to  Missouri,  to  look  into  Fremont's  case,  and  threatening  that  if 
Fremont  desired  to  he  could  set  up  a  government  for  himself. 
"  I  had  to  exercise  all  the  rude  tact  I  have  to  avoid  quarreling  with 
her,  "  said  Mr.  Lincoln  afterwards. 

The  day  after  this  interview  Lincoln  sent  the  order  modifying 
the  clause  as  Fremont  had  requested.  When  this  was  made  public 
a  perfect  storm  of  denunciation  broke  over  the  President.  The 
whole  North  felt  outraged.  There  was  talk  of  impeaching  Lincoln 
and  of  replacing  him  with  Fremont.  Great  newspapers  criticised 
his  action,  warning  him  to  learn  whither  he  was  tending.  Influen- 
tial men  in  all  professions  spoke  bitterly  of  his  action 

The  hardest  of  these  criticisms  to  bear  were  those  from  his  old 
friends  in  Illinois,  nearly  all  of  whom  supported  Fremont. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  6i. 

Death  of  Colonel  Baker  at  Ball's  Blufif 

October  21,  1861,  I  was  in  Washington.  The  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac was  in  camp  on  Arlington  Heights The  afternoon 

was  lovely — a  rare  October  day.  I  learned  early  in  the  day  that 
something  was  going  on  up  the  Potomac  near  Edwards '  Ferry,  by 

the  troops  under  General  Banks It  was  near  sunset 

when,  accompanied  by  a  fellow-correspondent,  I  went  once  more  to 
ascertain  what  was  taking  place 

While  waiting.  President  Lincoln  came  in,  recognized  us, 
reached  out  his  hand,  spoke  of  the  beauty  of  the  afternoon,  while 
waiting  for  the  return  of  the  young  lieutenant  who  had  gone  to 
announce  his  arrival.  The  lines  were  deeper  in  the  President's 
face  than  when  I  saw  him  in  his  own  home,  the  cheeks  more  sunken. 
They  were  lines  of  care  and  anxiety 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  427 

"Please  to  walk  this  way,"   said  the  lieutenant 

Five  minutes  passed,  and  then  Mr.  Lincoln,  unattended,  with  bowed 
head,  and  tears  rolling  down  his  furrowed  cheeks,  his  face  pale  and 
wan,  his  heart  heaving  with  emotion,  passed  through  the  room.  He 
almost  fell  as  he  stepped  into  the  street,  and  we  sprang  involuntarily 
from  our  seats  to  render  assistance,  but  he  did  not  fall.  With  both 
hands  pressed  upon  his  heart  he  walked  down  the  street,  not  return- 
ing the  salute  of  the  sentinel  pacing  his  beat  before  the  door.      .    . 

At  that  moment  the  finale  of  the  terrible  disaster  at  Ball's 
Bluff  was  going  on — the  retreat  to  the  river,  the  plunge  into  the 
swirling  water  to  escape  the  murderous  fire  flaming  upon  them 
from  the  rifles  of  the  victorious  Confederates.  It  was  the  news  of 
the  death  of  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker  which  stunned  President  Lincoln. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Charles  Carleton  Coffin,  Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice, 
page  171. 

"There  Is  Meat  in  That,  General" 

When  I  returned  to  Washington,  Lincoln  sent  for  me,  and  after 
greetings  said : 

"  General,  you  are  out  of  a  job ;  now,  if  we  only  had  the  troops, 
I  would  like  to  have  an  expedition  either  against  Mobile,  New 
Orleans,  or  Galveston.  Filling  up  regiments  is  going  on  very 
slowly."     I  said: 

"  Mr.  President,  you  gave  me  permission  to  tell  you  when  I 
differed  from  the  action  of  the  Administration.  "     He  said  hastily : 

"  You  think  we  are  wrong,  do  you? " 

I  said,  "  Yes,  in  this :  You  are  making  this  too  much  of  a 
party  war.  That  perhaps  is  not  the  fault  of  the  Administration,  but 
the  result  of  political  conditions.  All  the  northern  Governors  are 
Republicans,  and  they  of  course  appoint  only  their  Republican 
friends  as  officers  of  regiments,  and  then  the  officers  only  recruit 
Republicans.  Now  this  war  cannot  go  on  as  a  party  war.  You 
must  get  the  Democrats  in  it,  and  there  are  thousands  of  patriotic 
Democrats  who  would  go  into  it  if  they  could  see  any  opportunity  on 
equal  terms  with  Republicans."      .... 

He  said:  "There  is  meat  in  that.  General,"  a  favorite  ex- 
pression of  his,  "what  is  your  suggestion?" 

I  said :  "  Empower  me  to  raise  volunteers  for  the  United  States 
and  to  select  the  officers,  and  I  will  go  to  New  England  and  raise  a 


iLiiiiMi  ..  I,  .1  .1  '...^m.tmmmimar    ma» 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbeil. 

LINCOLN  IN  1861 

From  a  photograph  taken  when  he  began  to  let  his  beard  grow.     This  was  the  subject 
of  humorous  comment  and  caricature  by  the  press  generally. 


(428) 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  4^9 

division  of  6,000  men  in  sixty  days.  If  you  will  give  me  power  to 
select  the  officers  I  shall  choose  all  Democrats.  And  if  you  put 
epaulets  on  their  shoulders  they  will  be  as  true  to  the  country  as  I 
hope  I  am. " 

He  said :  "  Draw  such  an  order  as  you  want,  but  don't  get  me 
into  any  scrape  with  the  Governors  about  the  appointments  of  the 
officers  if  you  can  help  it.  " 

The  order  was  signed,  the  necessary  funds  were  furnished  the 
next  day,  and  I  started  for  New  England ;  in  ninety  days  I  had  6,000 
men  enlisted,  and  was  ordered  to  make  preparations  for  an  expedi- 
tion to  Ship  Island,  and  the  last  portion  of  that  expedition  sailed 
on  the  2  5th  of  February,  1862 

Before  I  left  Washington  I  called  on  the  President  to  take  leave 
of  him.     He  received  me  very  cordially,  and  said: 

"  Good-bye,  General ;  get  into  New  Orleans  if  you  can,  and  the 
backbone  of  the  rebellion  will  be  broken.  It  is  of  more  importance 
than  anything  else  that  can  now  be  done ;  but  don't  interfere  with 
the  slavery  question,  as  Fremont  has  done  at  St.  Louis,  and  as  your 
man  Phelps  has  been  doing  on  Ship  Island." 

I  said :  "  May  I  not  arm  the  negroes? " 

He  said:  "  Not  yet ;  not  yet.  " 

I  said:  "Jackson  did.  " 

He  answered :   "  Not  to  fight  against  their  masters,  but  with 

them." 

I   replied :  "  I  will  wait  for  the  word  or  the    necessity,   Mr. 

President.'' 

"  That's  right ;  God  be  with  you. " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  140, 

The  "  Trent »  Affair  and  Its  "  White  Elephants  " 

After  Ball's  Bluff,  the  grumbling  against  inaction  in  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  increased  until  public  attention  was  suddenly  dis- 
tracted by  an  incident  of  an  entirely  new  character,  and  one  which 
changed  the  discouragement  of  the  North  over  the  repeated  military 
failures  and  the  inactivity  of  the  army  into  exultation. 

This  incident  was  the  capture,  on  November  8,  by  Captain 
Wilkes,  of  the  warship  San  Jacinto,  of  two  Confederate  Commission- 
ers to  Europe,  Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell.  Captain  Wilkes  had  stop- 
ped the  British  royal  mail  packet  Trent,  one  day  out  from  Havana, 


430  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

and  taken  the  envoys  with  their  secretaries  from  her.  It  was  not 
until  November  15  that  Captain  Wilkes  put  into  Hampton  Roads 
and  sent  the  Navy  Department  word  of  his  performance. 

Of  course  the  message  was  immediately  carried  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
at  the  White  House.  A  few  hours  later  Benson  J.  Lossing  called 
on  the  President,  and  the  conversation  turned  on  the  news.  Mr. 
Lincoln  did  not  hesitate  to  express  himself, 

"  I  fear  the  traitors  will  prove  to  be  'white  elephants,  '"he  said. 
"We  must  stick  to  American  principles  concerning  the  rights  of 
neutrals.  We  fought  Great  Britain  for  insisting  by  theory  and 
practice  on  the  right  to  do  exactly  what  Captain  Wilkes  has  done. 
If  Great  Britain  shall  now  protest  against  the  act  and  demand  their 
release,  we  must  give  them  up,  apologize  for  the  act  as  a  violation 
of  our  doctrines  and  thus  forever  bind  her  over  to  keep  the  peace  in 
relation  to  neutrals,  and  so  acknowledge  that  she  has  been  in  the 
wrong  for  sixty  years. "     .... 

Early  in  December,  word  reached  America  that  England  was 
getting  ready  to  go  to  war  in  case  we  did  not  give  up  the  Com- 
missioners. The  news  aroused  the  deepest  indignation,  and  the 
determination  to  keep  Mason  and  Slidell  was  for  a  brief  time  stronger 
than  ever.     Common  sense  was  doing  its  work,  however 

It  was  on  Christmas  day  that  Seward  finally  had  his  answer 
ready.  It  granted  the  British  demand  as  to  the  surrender  of  the 
prisoners,  though  it  refused  an  apology — on  the  ground  that  Captain 
Wilkes  had  acted  without  orders 

Lincoln's  first  conclusion  was  the  real  ground  on  which  the 
Administration  submitted : 

"  We  must  stick  to  American  principles  concerning  the  rights 
of  neutrals. " 

The  country  grimaced  at  the  conclusion.  It  was  to  many,  as 
Chase  declared  it  was  to  him,  "  gall  and  wormwood.  " 

Lowell's  verse  [in  "  Biglow  Papers"]  best  expressed  the  popu- 
lar feeling: 

"  We  give  the  critters  back,  John, 

'Cos  Abram  thought  'twas  right ; 
It  warn't  your  bullyin'  clack,  John, 
Provokin'  us  to  fight.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell.  Vol.  II,  page  71. 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  431 

"Wilkes  Had  No  Right  to  Turn  His  Quarter-Deck  into  a  Prize-Court" 

I  often  heard  the  Attorney -General  (Bates)  say  on  his  return 
from  important  Cabinet  meetings  that  the  more  he  saw  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  the  more  he  was  impressed  with  the  clearness  and  vigor 
of  his  intellect  and  the  breadth  and  sagacity  of  his  views,  and  he 
would  add : 

"  He  is  beyond  question  the  master-mind  of  the  Cabinet. " 

No  man  could  talk  with  him  on  public  questions  without  being 
struck  with  the  singular  lucidity  of  his  mind  and  the  rapidity  with 
which  he  seized  upon  the  essential  point. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  news  came  of  the  stopping  of  the  English 
steamer  Trent  by  Admiral  Wilkes,  and  the  forcible  capture  of  Mason 
and  Slidell,  the  President  walked  into  the  Attorney -General's  room, 
and  as  he  seated  himelf ,  said  to  that  officer : 

"I'm  not  getting  much  sleep  out  of  that  exploit  of  Wilkes's,  and 
I  suppose  we  must  look  up  the  law  of  the  case.  I  am  not  much  of  a 
prize  lawyer,  but  it  seems  to  me  pretty  clear  that  if  Wilkes  saw  fit 
to  make  that  capture  on  the  high  seas  he  had  no  right  to  turn  his 
quarter-deck  into  a  prize  court." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Titian  J.  Coflfey,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  24s. 

"Sumner  Thinks  He  Runs  Me  " 

Although  himself  a  most  polished,  even  a  fastidious,  gentleman. 
Senator    Sumner    never    allowed    Lincoln's  homely  ways  to  hide 
his  great   qualities.     Sumner 
gave  Lincoln  the  respect  and 


esteem  at  the  start  which 
others  accorded  only  after  ex- 
perience. The  Senator  was 
most  tactful,  too,  in  his  deal- 
ings with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and 
soon  had  a  firm  footing  in  the 
household.  That  he  was 
proud  of  this,  and  perhaps  a 
little  boastful,  there  is  no 
doubt.  Lincoln  himself 
appreciated  this. 

"Sumner     thinks     he 
runs  me, "  he  said,  with  an  amused  twinkle,  one  day. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  73. 


LEADING  EVENTS  IN  1861 


Steamer  "  Star  of  the  West "  fired  on  by 

Secessionists Jan.    9 

Formation  of  the  Southern  Confederacy .  .   Feb.    4 
Jefferson  Davis  elected  President  of  C.S.A.  Feb.  18 
Bombardment  of   Fort  Sumter  by  Con- 
federates    Apr.  13 

Lincoln  calls  for  75,000  soldiers Apr.  15 

Seizure  of  Harper's  Ferry  by  Confeder- 
ates    Apr.  18 

Bloodshed  at   Baltimore,  (Sixth  Massa- 
chusetts Regiment) Apr.  19 

Confederates  seize  Norfolk  Navy  Yard  .  .    Apr.  20 
Secession     of  East  Virginia,   Arkansas, 
Tennessee  and  North  Carolina,  making 

1 1    Confederate  States May  and  June 

Battle  of  Bull  Run  (E.  Virginia),  Confed- 
erate victory July  21 

Trent   Affair,  Union    capture    of    Mason 

and  Slidell Nov.    8 


432  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Cameron,  Secretary  of  War,  Sent  to  Russia 

Before  the  Trent  affair  was  settled  another  matter  came  up  to 
....  harass  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  time  it  was  trouble  in  his  official 
family.  Mr.  Cameron,  his  Secretary  of  War,  had  bcome  even  more 
obnoxious  to  the  public  than  Fremont  or  McClellan.  Like  Seward, 
Cameron  had  been  one  of  Lincoln's  competitors  at  the  Chicago 
convention  in  i860.  His  appointment  to  the  Cabinet,  however,  had 
not  been  made,  like  Seward's,  because  of  his  eminent  fitness.  It  was 
the  one  case  in  which  a  bargain  had  been  made  before  the  nomi- 
nation. This  bargain  was  not  struck  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  by  his 
friend  and  ablest  supporter  at  Chicago,  Judge  David  Davis.      .    .    . 

Soon  after  the  extra  session  of  Congress  assembled  in  July,  a 
committee  was  appointed  to  look  into  the  contracts  the  War  De- 
partment was  making The  Secretary  of  War,  it  was 

clear,  had  not  been  able  to  manage  his  department  without  great 
scandal The  matter  was  too  serious  a  one  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln to  overlook.  The  public  would  not  have  permitted  him  to 
overlook  it,  even  if  he  had  been  so  disposed.      .... 

Nine  months  of  this  sort  of  experience  convinced  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  Cameron  was  not  the  man  for  the  place,  and  he  took  advan- 
tage of  a  remark  which  the  Secretary,  probably  in  a  moment  of 
depression,  had  made  to  him  more  than  once,  that  he  wanted  a 
"change  of  position,"  and  made  him  Minister  to  Russia. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  76. 

Cabinet  Ministers  and  Skunks 

The  skill  and  success  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  would  dispose  of 
an  embarrassing  question  or  avoid  premature  committal  to  a  policy 
advocated  by  others  is  well  known.  He  knew  how  to  send  applicants 
away  in  good  humor  even  when  they  failed  to  extract  the  desired 
response. 

A  story  told  of  him  after  General  Cameron's  retirement  from  the 
War  Department  illustrates  this  habit.  Every  one  knows  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  Cabinet  was  chosen  chiefly  from  his  rivals  for  the  Presi- 
dential nomination But  the  exigencies  of  the  War  de- 
manded, in  the  opinion  of  a  good  many  Republicans,  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  Cabinet  based  on  the  special  fitness  of  each  member  for 
the  great  work  in  hand.     Of  this  opinion  were  some  of  the  leading 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW 


433 


Republican  Senators.  After  the  retirement  of  General  Cameron 
they  held  a  caucus  and  appointed  a  committee  to  wait  on  the  Presi- 
dent  Since  the  President  had  decided  to  select  a  new 

War  Minister,  they  thought  the  occasion  was  opportune  to  change 
the  whole  seven  Cabinet  ministers.  They  therefore  earnestly 
advised  him  to  make  a  clean  sweep  and  select  seven  new  men,  and  so 
restore  the  waning  confidence  of  the  country. 

The  President  listened  with  patient  courtesy,  and  when  the 
Senators  had  concluded,  he  said,  with  a  characteristic  gleam  of 
humor  in  his  eye: 

"Gentlemen,  your  request  for  a 
change  of  the  whole  Cabinet  because  I 
have  made  one  change  reminds  me  of  a 
story  I  once  heard  in  Illinois  of  a  farmer 
who  was  much  troubled  by  skunks. 
They  annoyed  his  household  at  night, 
and  his  wife  insisted  that  he  should  take 
measures  to  get  rid  of  them.  One 
moonlight  night  he  loaded  his  old 
shot-gun  and  stationed  himself  in  the 
yard  to  watch  for  the  intruders,  his 
wife  remaining  in  the  house  anxiously 
awaiting  the  result. 

"  After  some  time  she  heard  the  shot-gun  go  off,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  the  farmer  entered  the  house. 

'"What  luck  had  you?'  she  asked. 

"  'I  hid  myself  behind  the  woodpile, '  said  the  old  man,  'with 
the  shot-gun  pointed  tov/ard  the  hen-roost,  and  before  long  there 
appeared  not  one  skunk  but  seven.  I  took  aim  and  blazed  away, 
killed  one,  and  he  raised  such  a  fearful  smell  that  I  concluded  it  \v  as 
best  to  let  the  other  six  go. '  " 

With  a  hearty  laugh  the  Senators  retired,  and  nothing  more  was 
heard  of  Cabinet  reconstruction. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Titian  J.  Coffey,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  235. 


Stanton  Made  Secretary  of  War 

What  change,  if  any,  Mr.  Stanton's  attitude  had  undergone  by 
January,  1862,  is  not  known.  Howbeit,  on  the  13th  of  that  month, 
the  President,  brushing  personal  feelings  aside,  nominated  him  to 


?8 


434  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN      ^ 

succeed  Simon  Cameron  as  Secretary  of  War It  (the 

appointment)  was  promptly  accepted  and  as  promptly  confirmed. 

The  elevation  of  Mr.  Stanton  to  an  important  place  in  the 
Lincoln  Cabinet  was  a  surprise  to  the  nation.  And  his  consent 
.  .  .  aroused  the  still  greater  wonder  of  his  own  friends.  One 
of  them   .    .    .   asked  the  new  Secretary : 

"What  will  you  do?" 

Mr.  Stanton,  ignoring  the  purport  of  the  question,  answered, 
among  other  things : 

"  I  will  make  Abe  Lincoln  President  of  the  United  States.  " 

He  clearly  believed  himself  summoned  ...  to  strengthen 
the  hands  of  an  impotent  President. 

However  grossly  Edwin  M.  Stanton  may  have  misjudged  Mr. 

Lincoln,  his  confidence  in  himself  was  well  founded His 

firmness  degenerated,  at  times,  into  sheer  obstinacy ;  his  enthusiasm, 
into  intolerance ;  his  strength  of  will,  into  arrogance.  No  one  who 
knew  the  man  courted  an  encounter  with  him.     Only  a  master  of 

masters  could  control  such  an  embodiment  of  force 

There  appeared  to  be  abundant  ground  for  their  comforting  pre- 
diction that  "Stanton  would  run  away  with  the  whole  concern." 
Strangely  enough,  the  President  showed  no  alarm.  He  was  merely 
reminded  of  a  little  story. 

"We  may  have  to  treat  him, "  said  he, " as  they  are  sometimes 
obliged  to  treat  a  Methodist  minister  I  know  out  West.  He  gets 
wrought  up  to  so  high  a  pitch  of  excitement  in  his  prayers  and 
exhortations,  that  they  have  to  put  bricks  into  his  pockets  to 
keep  him  down.  We  may  be  obliged  to  serve  Stanton  the  same 
way,  but  I  guess  we'll  let  him  jump  awhile  first.  " 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  227. 

How  Newspaper  Stories  Grow 

From  January,  1862,  until  the  close  of  the  War,  the  telegraphic 
reins  of  Government  were  held  by  a  firm  and  skilful  hand  in  the  War 
Department  and  in  their  guiding  influence  upon  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  were  all-powerful  for  good.  Dating,  also,  from  the  appoint- 
ment of  Stanton  to  the  Cabinet,  Lincoln  began  to  make  the  War 
Department  telegraph  office  his  lounging-place,  and  during  the 
winter  of  1862  we  saw  him  daily,  although  oiu-  office  at  that  time 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW  435 

was  crowded  and  inconvenient.  It  was  in  the  first-floor  rear  room 
that  I  first  heard  one  of  his  humorous  remarks.  General  Robert  C, 
Schenck,  who  after  the  War  became  minister  to  England  (but  who  is 
perhaps  better  remembered  as  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  gentle 
art  of  playing  poker,  of  which  game  the  English  public  became 
enamored  about  that  time),  was  in  command  of  our  forces  near 
Alexandria.  One  evening  he  sent  a  telegram  from  Drainsville, 
Virginia,  annotmcing  a  slight  skirmish  with  the  enemy,  resulting 
in  the  capture  of  thirty  or  forty  prisoners,  all  armed  with  Colt's 
revolvers.  As  Lincoln  read  the  message,  he  turned  to  the  operator 
who  had  handed  it  to  him,  and  said,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye, 
that  the  newspapers  were  given  to  such  exaggeration  in  publishing 
army  news  that  we  might  be  sure  when  General  Schenck 's  dispatch 
appeared  in  print  next  day  all  the  little  Colt's  revolvers  would  have 
grown  into  horse  pistols. 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates.     Century  Magazine,  Vol.  LXXIV,  May,  1907, 
page  129. 

The  White  House  Becomes  a  House  of  Mourning 

The  children.  Tad  and  Willie,  were  constantly  receiving  presents. 
Willie  was  so  delighted  with  a  little  pony  that  he  insisted  on  riding 
it  every  day.  The  weather  was  changeable,  and  exposure  resulted 
in  a  severe  cold  which  deepened  into  fever.  He  was  very  sick  and 
I  was  summoned  to  his  bedside.  It  was  sad  to  see  the  boy  suffer. 
Always  of  a  delicate  constitution,  he  could  not  resist  the  inroads  of 
disease.  The  days  dragged  wearily  by,  and  he  grew  weaker  and 
more  shadow-like.     He  was  his  mother's  favorite  child — she  doted 

on  him When   able   to   be   about,    he    was    almost 

constantly  by  her  side.  When  I  would  go  in  her  room,  almost 
always  I  foimd  blue-eyed  Willie  there,  reading,  or  curled  up  in  a 
chair  with  pencil  and  paper  in  hand.  He  had  a  decidedly  liter- 
ary taste,  and  was  a  studious  boy.  (A  short  time  before  his 
death,  he  wrote  a  simple  poem,  "  Lines  on  the  Death  of  Colonel 
Edward  Baker,  "  which  he  sent  to  the  editor  of  the  National  Repub- 
lican.) 

Finding  that  Willie  continued  to  grow  worse,  Mrs.  Lincoln 
determined  to  withdraw  her  cards  of  invitation  and  postpone  the 
reception.  Mr.  Lincoln  thought  that  the  cards  had  better  not  be 
withdrawn.     At  least  he  advised  that  the  doctor  be  consulted  before 


436  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

any  steps  were  taken.  Accordingly  Dr.  Stone  was  called  in.  He 
pronounced  Willie  better,  and  said  that  there  was  every  reason  for 
an  early  recovery.  He  thought,  since  the  invitations  had  been 
issued,  it  would  be  best  to  go  on  with  the  reception.  Willie,  he 
insisted,  was  in  no  immediate  danger.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  guided  by 
these  cotinsels,  and  no  postponement  was  announced. 

On  the  evening  of  the  reception  Willie  was  suddenly  taken 
worse.  His  mother  sat  by  his  bedside  a  long  while,  holding  his 
feverish  hand  in  her  own,  and  watching  his  labored  breathing.  Still 
the  doctor  claimed  there  was  no  cause  for  alarm. 

I  arranged  Mrs.  Lincoln's  hair,  then  assisted  her  to  dress.  Her 
dress  was  white  satin  trimmed  'with  black  lace.  The  train  was  very 
long,  and  she  swept  through  the  room,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  standing 
with  his  back  to  the  fire,  his  hands  behind  him,  and  his  eyes  on  the 
carpet.  His  face  wore  a  solemn,  thoughtful  look.  The  rustling  of 
the  satin  dress  attracted  his  attention.  He  looked  at  it ;  then  in  his 
quaint,  quiet  way  remarked, 

"Whew!  our  cat  has  a  long  tail  to-night."  Mrs.  Lincoln  did 
not  reply.     The  President  added : 

"  Mother,  it  is  my  opinion  that  if  some  of  that  tail  was  nearer 
the  head,  it  would  be  in  better  style,"  and  he  glanced  at  her  bare 
arms  and  neck.  She  had  a  beautiful  neck  and  arm,  and  low  dresses 
were  becoming  to  her.  She  turned  away  with  a  look  of  offended 
dignity,  and  presently  took  the  President's  arm  and  both  went 
down-stairs  to  their  guests,  leaving  me  alone  with  the  sick  boy. 

The  reception  was  a  large  and  brilliant  one,  and  the  rich  notes 
of  the  Marine  Band,  in  the  apartments  below,  came  to  the  sick- 
room in  soft,  subdued  murmurs,  like  the  wild,  faint  sobbing  of  far- 
off  spirits.  Some  of  the  young  people  suggested  dancing,  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  met  the  suggestion  with  an  emphatic  veto 

During  the  evening,  Mrs.  Lincoln  came  up-stairs  several  times, 
and  stood  by  the  bedside  of  the  suffering  boy.  She  loved  him  with 
a  mother's  heart,  and  her  anxiety  was  great.  The  night  passed 
slowly ;  morning  came,  and  Willie  was  worse.  He  lingered  a  few 
days  and  died.  God  called  the  beautiful  spirit  home,  and  the  house 
of  joy  was  turned  into  the  house  of  mourning. 

I  was  worn  out  with  watching,  and  was  not  in  the  room  when 
Willie  died,  but  was  immediately  sent  for.  I  assisted  in  washing  and 
dressing  him,  and  then  laid  him  on  the  bed,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  came 


DEFIANCE,  DISASTER,  SORROW 


437 


in.  I  never  saw  a  man  so  bowed  down  with  grief.  He  came  to  the 
bed,  lifted  the  cover  from  the  face  of  his  child,  gazed  at  it  long 
and  earnestly,  murmuring, 

"  My  poor  boy,  he  was  too  good  for  this  earth.  God  has  called 
him  home.  I  know  that  he  is  much  better  off  in  heaven,  but  then 
we  loved  him  so.     It  is  hard — hard — to  have  him  die!" 

Great  sobs  choked  his  utterance.  He  buried  his  head  in  his 
hands,  and  his  tall  frame  was 
convulsed  with  emotion.  I  stood 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  my  eyes 
full  of  tears,  looking  at  the  man 
in  silent,  awe-stricken  wonder. 
His  grief  unnerved  him,  and  made 
him  a  weak,  passive  child.  I  did 
not  dream  that  his  rugged  na- 
ture could  be  so  moved;  I  shall 
never  forget  those  solemn  mo- 
ments. .  .  .  There  is  a  gran- 
deur as  well  as  a  simplicity  about 
the  picture  that  will  never 
fade 

Mrs.      Lincoln     was     incon- 
solable  In  one  of  her 

paroxysms  of  grief  the  President 
kindly  bent  over  his  wife,  took 
her  by  the  arm,  and  gently  led 
her  to  the  window.  With  a  sol- 
emn, stately  gesture  he  pointed 
to  the   lunatic    asylimi,   saying: 

"Mother,    do    you   see   that 
large,  white  building  on  the  hill 
yonder?     Try  and  control  your  grief,  or  it  will  drive  you  mad,  and 
we  may  have  to  send  you  there.  " 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  so  completely  overwhelmed  with  sorrow  that 

she  did  not  attend  the  funeral The  White  House  was 

draped  in  mourning 

Nathaniel  Parker  Willis,  the  genial  poet,  wrote  a  beautiful 
sketch  of  Willie  Lincoln,  which  closed  as  follows; 


WILLIE  LINCOLN 

From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of 
Charles  W.  McLellan,  Esq. 


438  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  The  funeral  was  very  touching.     Of  the  entertainments  in  the 

East  Room  the  boy  had  been  a  most  Hfe-giving  variation 

He  was  his  father's  favorite.  They  were  intimates — often  seen 
hand  in  hand.  And  there  sat  the  man,  with  a  burden  on  the  brain 
at  which  the  world  marvels — bent  now  with  the  load  at  both  heart 
and  brain — staggering  under  a  blow  like  the  taking  from  him  of 
his  child.  His  men  of  power  sat  aroiind  him — McClellan,  with  a 
moist  eye  when  he  bowed  to  the  prayer,  as  I  could  see  from  where  I 
stood;  and  Chase  and  Seward,  with  their  austere  features  at  work; 
and  senators,  ambassadors  and  soldiers,  all  struggling  with  their 
tears — great  hearts  sorrowing  with  the  President  as  a  stricken  man 
and  a  brother.  That  God  may  give  him  strength  for  all  his  burdens 
is,  I  am  sure,  the  prayer  of  a  nation. " 

This  sketch  was  much  admired  by  Mrs.  Lincoln.  I  copy  it 
from  the  scrap-book  in  which  she  pasted  it,  with  many  tears,  with 
her  own  hands. 

Behind  the  Scenes,  Elizabeth  Keckley  (Thirty  Years  a  Slave  and  Four  Years  in  the  White  House), 
page  98. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Lincoln  and  McClellan 

"  Some  Strange  Operation  of  Magic  " 

Lincoln's  kindness  and  patience  in  dealing  with  the  generals 
who  did  not  succeed  is  the  wonder  of  all  who  study  the  history  of 
the  Civil  War.  The  letters  he  wrote  to  them  show,  better  than 
whole  volumes  of  description  could  do,  the  hopeful  and  forbearing 
spirit  in  which  he  sought  to  aid  them. 

First  among  these  unsuccessful  generals  was  George  B.  Mc- 
Clellan, who  had  been  called  to  Washington  after  the  Battle  of  Bull 
Run  and  placed  in  charge  of  the  great  raw  army  of  three  years' 
volunteers  that  was  pouring  so  rapidly  into  the  city.  McClellan 
proved  a  wonderful  organizer.  Under  his  skilful  direction  the 
raw  recruits  went  to  their  camps  of  instruction,  fell  without  delay 
or  confusion  into  brigades  and  divisions,  were  supplied  with  equip- 
ments, horses  and  batteries,  and  put  through  a  routine  of  drill,  tactics 
and  reviews  that  soon  made  this  Army  of  the  Potomac,  as  it  was 
called,  one  of  the  best  prepared  armies  the  world  has  ever  seen — 
a  perfect  fighting  machine  of  over  150,000  men  and  more  than  200 
guns. 

General  McClellan  excelled  in  getting  soldiers  ready  to  fight, 
but  he  did  not  succeed  in  leading  them  to  fruitful  victory.  At  first 
the  Administration  had  great  hopes  of  him  as  a  commander.  He 
was  young,  enthusiastic,  winning,  and  on  arri  zing  in  Washington 
seemed  amazed  and  deeply  touched  by  the  confidence  reposed  in 
him: 

"I  find  myself, "  he  wrote  to  his  wife,  "in  a  new  and  strange 
position  here,  President,  Cabinet,  General  Scott  and  all,  deferring 
to  me.  By  some  strange  operation  of  magic  I  seem  to  have  become 
the  power  of  the  land.  " 

His  rise  in  military  rank  had  equaled  the  inventions  of  fairy 
tales.  He  had  been  only  a  captain  during  the  Mexican  War.  Then 
he  resigned.     Two  months  after  volunteering  io-r  the  Civil  War  he 


440  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

found  himself  a  Major-General  in  the  Regular  Army,  For  a  short 
time  his  zeal  and  activity  seemed  to  justify  this  amazing  good 
fortune.  In  a  fortnight,  however,  he  began  to  look  upon  himself 
as  the  principal  savior  of  his  country.  He  entered  upon  a  quarrel 
with  General  Scott  which  soon  drove  that  old  hero  into  retirement 
and  out  of  his  pathway.  He  looked  upon  the  Cabinet  as  a  set  of 
"geese,  "  and  seeing  that  the  President  was  kind  and  unassuming  in 
discussing  military  affairs,  he  formed  the  habit  of  expressing  con- 
tempt for  him  in  letters  to  confidential  friends.  This  feeling  grew 
until  it  soon  reached  a  mark  of  open  disrespect ;  but  the  President's 
conduct  toward  him.  did  not  change.  Mr.  Lincoln's  nature  was  too 
forgiving,  and  the  responsibility  that  lay  upon  him  was  too  heavy 
for  personal  resentment. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  172. 

"Enough  to  Tax  the  Patience  of  Job!" 

It  was  not  in  the  West  alone  that  the  President  was  suffering 
disappointment.  At  the  time  when  Fremont  received  the  order 
retiring  him,  McClellan  had  been  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  for  over  three  months.  His  force  had  been  increased  until 
it  numbered  over  168,000  men.  He  had  given  night  and  day  to 
organizing  and  drilling  this  army,  and  it  seemed  to  those  who 
watched  him  that  he  now  had  a  force  as  near  ready  for  battle  as  an 
army  could  be  made  ready  by  anything  save  actual  fighting.  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  fully  sympathized  with  his  young  general's  desire  to 
prepare  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  for  the  field,  and  had  given  him 
repeated  proofs  of  his  support. 

McClellan,  however,  seems  to  have  felt  from  the  first  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  kindness  was  merely  a  personal  recognition  of  his  own 
military  genius.  He  had  conceived  the  idea  that  it  was  he  alone 
who  was  to  save  the  country. 

"  The  people  call  upon  me  to  save  the  country,  "  he  wrote  to  his 
wife.  "I  must  save  it,  and  cannot  respect  anything  that  is  in  the 
way."  ....  "The  President  cannot  or  will  not  see  the  true 
state  of  affairs." 

Lincoln,  in  his  anxiety  to  know  the  details  of  the  work  in 
the  army,  went  frequently  to  McClellan's  headquarters.  That  the 
President  had  a  serious  purpose  in  these  visits  McClellan  did  not  see. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  441 

"  I  enclose  a  card  just  received  from  'A.  Lincoln,'"  he  wrote  to 
his  wife  one  day,  "  it  shows  too  much  deference  to  be  seen  outside.  " 

In  another  letter  to  Mrs.  McClellan  he  spoke  of  being  "in- 
terrupted" by  the ■  President  and  Secretary  Seward,  "who  had 
nothing  particular  to  say,"  and  again  of  concealing  himself,  "to 
dodge  all  enemies  in  the  shape  of  'browsing'  Presidents,  etc.  "  His 
plans  he  kept  to  himself,  and  when  in  the  Cabinet  meetings,  to  which 
he  was  constantly  summoned,  military  matters  were  discussed,  he 
seemed  to  feel  that  it  was  an  encroachment  on  his  special  business. 

"  I  am  becoming  daily  more  disgusted  with  this  Administration 
— perfectly  sick  of  it, ' '  he  wrote  early  in  October ;  and  a  few  days 
later:  "I  was  obliged  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  at  8  p.m., 
and  was  bored  and  annoyed.  There  are  some  of  the  greatest  geese 
in  the  Cabinet  I  have  ever  seen — enough  to  tax  the  patience  of 
Job." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  H,  page  69. 

Lincoln  Studies  Strategy  While  McClellan  Is  111 

Towards  the  end  of  December  McClellan  fell  ill.  The  long- 
expected  advance  was  out  of  the  question  until  he  recovered.  Dis> 
tracted  at  this  idea,  the  President  for  the  first  time  asserted  himself 

as  Commander-in-chief  of  the  forces  of  the  United  States 

This  hesitancy  about  exercising  his  military  authority  came  from 
Lincoln's  consciousness  that  he  knew  next  to  nothing  about  the 
business  of  fighting.  When  he  saw  that  those  supposed  to  know 
something  of  the  science  did  nothing,  he  resolved  to  learn  the  subject 
himself  as  thoroughly  as  he  could. 

"  He  gave  himself,  night  and  day,  to  the  study  of  the  military 
situation, "  say  Nicolay  and  Hay,  his  secretaries.  "  He  read  a 
large  number  of  strategical  works.  He  pored  over  the  reports  from 
the  various  departments  and  districts  of  the  field  of  war.  He  held 
long  conferences  with  eminent  generals  and  admirals,  and  as- 
tonished them  by  the  extent  of  his  special  knowledge  and  the  keen 
intelligence  of  his  questions." 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  83. 

« 

McClellan's  Account  of  His  Relations  with  Lincoln 

My  relations  with  Mr.  Lincoln  were  generally  very  pleasant,  and 
J  seldom  had  trouble  with  him  when  we  could  meet  face  to  face. 


442  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

The  difficulty  always  arose  behind  my  back.  I  believe  that  he  liked 
me  personally,  and  certainly  he  was  much  influenced  by  me  when 
we  were  together.  During  the  early  part  of  my  command  in 
Washington  he  often  consulted  with  me  before  taking  important 
steps  or  appointing  general  officers 

When  Stanton  was  made  Secretary  of  War  I  knew  nothing  of 
the  matter  until  the  nomination  had  already  gone  to  the  Senate. 
Next  day  the  President  came  to  my  house  to  apologize  for  not 
consulting  me  on  the  subject.  He  said  that  he  knew  Stanton  to  be 
a  friend  of  mine  and  assumed  that  I  would  be  glad  to  have  him 
Secretary  of  War,  and  that  he  feared  that  if  he  told  me  beforehand 
"some  of  those  fellows  would  say  that  I  had  dragooned  him  into 
it."     .... 

Officially  my  association  with  the  President  was  very  close 
until  the  severe  attack  of  illness  in  December,  1861.  I  was  often 
sent  for  to  attend  formal  and  informal  Cabinet  meetings,  and  at  all 
hours  whenever  the  President  desired  to  consult  with  me  on  any 
subject;  and  he  often  came  to  my  house,  frequently  late  at  night, 
to  learn  the  last  news  before  retiring.  His  fame  as  a  narrator  of 
anecdotes  was  fully  deserved,  and  he  always  had  something  a 
propos  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 

Late  one  night,  when  he  was  at  fny  house,  I  received 
a  telegram  from  an  officer  commanding  a  regiment  on  the 
upper  Potomac.  The  despatch  related  to  some  very  desperate 
fighting  that  had  been  done  during  the  day,  describing  in 
magniloquent  terms  the  severe  nature  of  the  contest,  fierce 
bayonet-charges,  etc.,  and  terminated  with  a  very  small  list  of 
killed  and  wounded,  quite  out  of  proportion  with  his  description 
of  the  struggle. 

The  President  quietly  listened  to  my  reading  of  the  telegram, 
and  then  said  that  it  reminded  him  of  a  notorious  liar,  who  attained 
such  a  reputation  as  an  exaggerator  that  he  finally  instructed  his 
servant  to  stop  him,  when  his  tongue  was  running  too  rapidly,  by 
pulling  his  coat  or  touching  his  feet.  One  day  the  master  was  relat- 
ing wonders  he  had  seen  in  Europe,  ^nd  described  a  building  which 
was  about  a  mile  long  and  a  half-mile  high.  Just  then  the  servant's 
heel  came  down  on  the  narrator's  toes,  and  he  stopped  abruptly. 
One  of  the  listeners  asked  how  broad  this  remarkable  building 
might  be;  the  narrator  modestly  replied,  "About  a  foot!"    ,    ,    ,    , 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN 


443 


Long  before  the  war,  when  vice-president  of  the  IlHnois  Cen- 
tral Railroad  Company,  I  knew  Mr.  Lincoln,  for  he  was  one  of  the 
counsel  of  the  company.     More  than  once  I  have  been  with  him  in 


From  The  Reminiscenses  of  Carl  Schurz. 

PRESIDENT  LINCOLN  AT  GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  HEADQUARTERS 

out-of-the-way  county-seats  where  some  important  case  was  being 
tried,  and,  in  the  lack  of  sleeping  accommodations,  have  spent  the 
night  in  front  of  a  stove  listening  to  the  unceasing  flow  of  anecdotes 


444  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

from  his  lips.  He  was  never  at  a  loss,  and  I  could  never  quite  make 
up  my  mind  how  many  of  them  he  really  had  heard  before,  and 
how  many  he  invented  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  His  stories 
were  seldom  refined,  but  were  always  to  the  point. 

McClellan's  Own  Story,  page  i6o. 

President  Lincoln's  First  General  War  Order 

President  Lincoln  was  not  wanting  in  a  correct  estimate  of  the 
power  vested  in  him  by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  nor  was  he 
wanting  in  will  or  in  dignity  of  character  to  assert  his  authority 
when  it  was  directly  questioned.  But  he  found  it  difficult  to  deal 
with  the  indirect  insubordination  which  ignored  or  neglected  his 
orders,  and  which  baffled  his  purposes  by  groundless  excuses  and 
unnecessary  delays.  He  sought  to  persuade  without  commanding, 
and  for  a  time  carried  this  to  the  verge  of  an  abdication  of  authority. 
He  had  placed  the  destinies  of  the  country  in  the  hands  of  a  young 
man  who  had  never  fought  a  battle,  and  who,  at  the  time  cf 
Stanton's  appointment,  gave  little  promise  of  any  intention  ever 
to  fight  one.  He  believed  that  the  army  should  move,  but  still  left 
General  McClellan  to  decide  when  it  should  move.  Foreign  inter- 
vention was  imminent,  and  even  the  war  spirit  in  the  North  might 
not  be  proof  against  hope  too  long  deferred.  But  the  young  General, 
while  giving  out  indications  at  various  times  of  an  intended  early 
advance,  was  never  ready.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  that  McClellan  was 
wanting  either  in  capacity  or  earnestness,  but  was  not  willing  to 
say  so  harsh  a  thing 

Stanton  w^as  emotional  and  sympathetic  too,  but  he    had  no 

tenderness    for    indifference    or    insubordination He 

thought  when  the  President  asserted  his  authority,  it  would  be 
obeyed.  He  took  office  with  the  intention  of  urging  that  course 
upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  of  supporting  him  in  it Mc- 
Clellan declares  in  his  "  Own  Story  "  that  he  had  smooth  sailing  with 
the  Administration  until  shortly  before  Stanton  became  Secretary 
of  War,  when  difficulties  commenced,  which  culminated  soon  after 
his  appointment, 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  temporized  mth  McClellan  in  the  exercise  of 
that  large  charity  which  "hopeth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
and  endureth  all  things. "   .    .    .    , 

At  that  time  the  lower  Potomac  was  blockaded,  the  Baltimore 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  445 


and  Ohio  Railroad  obstructed,  and  the  Capital  besieged,  while 
180,000  troops  were  idling  in  camp.  In  the  West  the  Rebels  had 
been  aggressive,  and  although  they  had  not  had  their  own  way  in 
Missouri  and  Kentucky,  no  general  plan  of  campaign  was  yet 
visible 

Stanton  soon  found  that  McClellan  was  as  stubborn  against  his 
persuasions  as  he  had  been  against  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Then 
commenced  the  long  struggle  betw^een  the  Government  and  General 
McClellan,  which,  at  its  height,  threatened  the  integrity  both  of  the 
Government  and  of  the  Army. 

As .  mere  suggestions  and  exhortations  to  McClellan  to  take 
some  steps  toward  raising  the  siege  of  the  Capital  produced  no 
effect,  the  President  issued  the  following  order: 

"Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  D.  C. 

"January  27,  1862. 
/'President's  General  War  Order,  No.  i. 

''Ordered:  That  the  22nd  day  of  February,  1862,  be  the  day 
for  a  general  movement  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  of  the  United 
States  against  the  insurgent  forces.  That  especially  the  army  at 
and  about  Fortress  Monroe,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  Army 
of  Western  Virginia,  the  army  near  Munfordville,  Kentucky,  the 
army  and  flotilla  near  Cairo,  and  a  naval  force  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
be  ready  to  move  on  that  day. 

"That  all  other  forces,  both  land  and  naval,  with  their  respect- 
ive commanders,  obey  existing  orders  for  the  time,  and  be  ready  to 
obey  additional  orders  when  duly  given. 

"That  the  heads  of  departments,  and  especially  the  Secretaries 
of  War  and  of  the  Na-yy,  with  all  their  subordinates  and  the 
General-in-chief  with  all  other  commanders  and  subordinates  of 
land  and  naval  forces,  will  severally  be  held  to  their  strict  and  full 
responsibilities  for  the  prompt  execution  of  this  order. 

"A.  Lincoln." 

...  .It  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  exercise  of  his  authority  as 
Commander-in-chief. 

Lije  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  George  C.  Gorham,  Vol.  I,  page  338. 


446  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Masterly  Inactivity"  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 

During  Mr.  Stanton's  first  week  in  the  War  Department  General 
McClellan  had  laid  before  him  orally  his  opinion  as  to  the  part  the 
Army  .of  the  Potomac  should  execute,  in  a  general  plan  of  operations 
of  all  the  armies.  This  was  to  transport  that  army  down  the  Po- 
tomac and  lower  Chesapeake,  and  advance  upon  the  Rebel  capital 
from  that  direction.  The  Secretary  instructed  him  to  develop  his 
plans  to  the  President,  which  he  did.  They  were  disapproved,  and, 
on  the  31st  day  of  January,  the  President  issued  his  order,  "that 
all  the  disposable  forces  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  after  safely 
providing  for  the  defense  of  Washington,  be  formed  into  an  expedi- 
tion for  the  immediate  object  of  seizing  and  occupying  a  point  upon 
the  railroad,  southwestward  of  what  is  known  as  Manassas  Junction, 
all  details  to  be  in  the  discretion  of  the  General-in-chief,  and  the 
expedition  to  move  before  or  on  the  22nd  day  of  February  next. " 

This  order  was  never  revoked  and  never  obeyed.  General  Mc- 
Clellan asked  leave  to  submit  his  views  as  to  the  two  opposing  plans. 
These  must  have  been  presented  fully  already,  in  the  long  confer- 
ences which  had  been  held  with  him  by  the  President  and  the  Secre- 
tary. Nevertheless,  he  was  granted  the  desired  permission,  and  on 
the  3d  of  February  he  submitted  a  long  paper  in  which  he  gave 
his  reasons  in  support  of  his  own  plan  as  against  the  plan  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  same  time  addressed  him  the  following 
letter : 

"Executive  Mansion,  Washington, 

"February  3,  1862. 
"Major-General  McClellan: 

''My  dear  Sir. — You  and  I  have  distinct  and  different  plans 
for  a  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac — yours  to  be  down 
the  Chesapeake,  up  the  Rappahannock  to  Urbana,  and  across  land 
to  the  terminus  of  the  railroad  on  the  York  River ;  mine  to  move 
directly  to  a  point  on  the  railroad  southwest  of  Manassas. 

"If  you  will  give  me  satisfactory  answers  to  the  follo\\dng 
questions,  I  shall  gladly  yield  my  plan  to  yours : 

"  ist.  Does  not  your  plan  involve  a  greatly  larger  expenditure 
of  time  and  money  than  mine? 

"2nd.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your  plan  than 
mine? 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN 


447 


"3d.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  valuable  by  your  plan  than 
mine? 

"4th.  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in  this,  that  it 
would  break  no  great  line  of  the  enemy's  communications,  while 
mine  would  ? 

"5th.  In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  safe  retreat  be  more 
difficult  by  your  plan  than  by  mine?         Yours  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

In  McClellan's  "views"  he  named  the  total  force  necessary  for 
his  plans  to  be  from  110,000  to  140,000.  He  informs  us  in  his  final 
report  that  "this  letter  must  have  produced  some  effect  upon  the 
mind  of  the  President,  since  the  execution  of  his  order  was  not 
required,"  that  is  to  say,  it  was  treated  by  him  as  not  revoked, 
because  it  was  not  imperatively  enforced 

No  other  plan  was  taken,  and,  as  a  consequence,  there  was  no 
pushing  it,  either  vigorously  or  otherwise.  The  Rebels  evacuated 
their  Potomac  batteries  at  their  own  will  and  pleasure  ten  days  later, 
when,  immolested  and  without  the  knowledge  of  McClellan,  they 
also  evacuated  Manassas  and  Winchester. 

Life  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  George  C.  Gorham,  Vol.  I,  page  338. 

"I  Would  Find  Means  to  Prevent  the 
'Merrimac' " 

The  late  Schuyler  Colfax  told  me 
that  he  was  present  at  an  interview 
accorded  to  the  representatives  of 
the  moneyed  interests  of  New  York, 
when  the  Merrimac  escaped  from 
Hampton  Roads  and  was  supposed 
to  be  making  its  way  to  that  port. 

The  delegation  arose  one  after 
another,  one  man  stating  that  he  was 
worth  $10,000,000,  and  another  that 
he  represented  $50,000,000,  and 
another  that  he  was  worth  several 
millions  of  dollars  and  represented 
many  times  as  many  millions  more; 
and  that  they  had  paid  their 
taxes,  subscribed  to  the 
Government's  loans,  and  ought  to  be  protected. 


CHAUNCEY  M.  DEPEW 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Mr.  Lincoln  said:  "Well,  gentlemen,  the  Government  has  no 
vessel  as  yet,  that  I  know  of,  that  can  sink  the  Merrimac,  and  our 
resources,  both  of  money  and  credit,  are  strained  to  the  utmost. 
But  if  I  had  as  much  money  as  you  say  you  have  got,  and  was 
as  'skeered'  as  you  seem  to  be,  I  would  find  means  to  prevent  the 
Merrimac  ever  reacliing  my  property.  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page 
433. 

The  President's  Unwavering  Confidence  in  the  "  Monitor  " 

The  President  expressed  his  belief  in  the  Monitor  to  Captain 
Fox,  the  adviser  of  Captain  Ericsson  who  constructed  it, 

"I  am  not  prepared  for  disastrous  results,  why  should  I  be? 
We  have  three  of  the  most  effective  vessels  in  Hampton  Roads,  any 
number  of  small  craft  that  will  hang  on  the  stern  of  the  Merrimac 

like  small  dogs  on  the  haunches  of 
a  bear.  They  may  not  be  able  to 
tear  her  down,  but  they  will  inter- 
fere with  the  comfort  of  her  voy- 
age. Her  trial  trip  will*  not  be  a 
pleasure  trip,  I  am  certain.  We 
have  had  a  big  share  of  bad  luck 
already,  but  I  do  not  believe  the 
future  has  any  such  misfortunes  in 
store  as  you  anticipate.  ** 

Said  Captain  Fox: 

"If  the  Merrimac  does  not 
sink  our  ships,  who  is  to  prevent 
her  from  dropping  her  anchor  in 
the  Potomac  where  that  steamer 
lies,  ....  and  throwing  her 
hundred-pound  shells  into  this 
room,  or  battering  down  the  walls 
of  the  Capitol?" 

"  The  Almighty,  Captain, " 
answered  the  President,  excitedly,  but  without  the  least  affectation. 
"I  expect  set-backs,  defeats;  we  have  had  them  and  shall  have 
them.  They  are  common  to  all  wars.  But  I  have  not  the 
slightest  fear  of  any  result  which  shall  fatally  impair  our  military 


JOHN  ERICSSON 
Inventor  and  builder  of  the  "Monitor.' 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  449 

and  naval  strength,  or  give  other  powers  any  right  to  interfere  in 
our  quarrel.  The  destruction  of  the  Capitol  would  do  both.  I  do 
not  fear  it,  for  this  is  God's  fight,  and  He  will  win  it  in  His  own 
good  time.  He  will  take  care  that  our  enemies  do  not  push  us 
too  far. 

"Speaking  of  ironclads,"  said  the  President,  "you  do  not 
seem  to  take  the  little  Monitor  into  account.  I  believe  in  the 
Monitor  and  her  commander.  If  Captain  Worden  does  not  give  a 
good  account  of  the  Monitor  and  of  himself,  I  shall  have  made  a 
mistake  in  following  my  judgment  for  the  first  time  since  I  have 
been  here.  Captain.  I  have  not  made  a  mistake  in  following  my 
clear  judgment  of  men  since  this  war  began.  I  followed  that 
judgment  when  I  gave  Worden  the  command  of  the  Monitor.  I 
would  make  the  appointment  over  again  to-day.  The  Monitor 
should  be  in  Hampton  Roads  now.     She  left  New  York  eight  days 


ago. 


"The  Monitor  was  one  of  my  inspirations;  I  believed  in  her 
formerly  when  that  energetic  contractor  first  showed  me  Ericsson's 
plans.  Captain  Ericsson's  plain  but  rather  enthusiastic  demon- 
stration made  my  conversion  permanent.  It  was  called  a  floating 
battery  then;  I  called  it  a  raft.  I  caught  some  of  the  inventor's 
enthusiasm  and  it  has  been  growing  upon  me.  I  thought  then,  and 
I  am  confident  now,  that  it  is  just  what  we  want.  I  am  sure  that 
the  Monitor  is  still  afloat,  and  that  she  will  yet  give  a  good  account 
of  herself.  Sometimes  I  think  she  may  be  the  veritable  sling  that 
will  yet  smite  the  Merriniac  Philistine  in  the  forehead. " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  192. 

The  President's  Delight  at  the  Victory  of  the  "Monitor"  over  the 

"Merrimac" 

Three  days  after  the  emancipation  meeting  of  the  6th  of  March, 
I  returned  to  Washington  and  made  my  report  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  He 
was  in  high  spirits  over  the  event  which,  in  the  preceding  day,  had 
taken  place  in  Hampton  Roads.  It  was  the  epoch-making  naval 
battle  between  the  Merrimac  and  the  Monitor — ^the  introduction 
of  the  ironclad  war-vessel  to  the  history  of  the  world.  There 
was,  indeed,  ample  reason  for  congratulating  ourselves  upon  a 
narrow  escape  from  incalculable   disaster.      On   March   8th  the 

30 


450  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

famous  Mernmac,  an  old  vessel  which  had  been  sunk  in  Norfolk 
Harbor  and  then  raised  by  the  Rebels,  and  which  had  been  covered 
by  a  thick  coat  of  metal  plates  and  armed  with  an  iron  ram  and  a 
formidable  battery,  steamed  out  of  the  mouth  of  Elizabeth  River, 
sunk  or  destroyed  a  number  of  United  States  men-of-war  assembled 
in  Hampton  Roads,  without  being  harmed  in  the  least  by  theii 
artillery,  and  thus  demonstrated  her  ability  to  overpower  any  war- 
ship in  our  navy  then  afloat.  When  the  news  reached  Washington, 
the  members  of  the  Cabinet  rushed  to  the  White  House  in  a  state 
of  utter  consternation.  Some  of  them  already  saw  that  dreadful 
monster,  carrying  an  apparently  invulnerable  armament,  easily 
break  up  our  blockade  of  Southern  ports,  or  lay  our  seaport  cities 
tmder  contribution,  or  ascend  the  Potomac,  and,  with  its  shells, 
drive  the  government  out  of  the  National  Capital.  The  next 
morning  the  terrible  dragon  came  forth  from  Norfolk  Harbor 
again  to  continue  the  work  of  unimpeded  ruin.  Then,  all  of  a 
sudden,  an  insignificant-looking  thing,  resembling  a  small  "raft 
with  a  large  iron  cheese-box"  upon  it,  appeared  on  the  scene  and 
bade  defiance  to  the  Rebel  demon.  It  was  the  celebrated  Monitor, 
which,  under  the  orders  of  the  Government,  had  been  built  by  the 
famous  engineer,  Ericsson,  and  which  had  been  quietly  towed  from 
New  York  to  Hampton  Roads.  The  savior  arrived  in  good  time. 
The  Monitor  proved  as  invulnerable  as  the  Merrimac,  and  even 
more  effective.  After  a  duel  between  the  tw^o  champions,  lasting 
several  hours,  the  Merrimac  retreated  into  Elizabeth  River,  and 
the  Monitor  remained  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the  field. 

When  I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  the  next  day,  his  mind  was  still  so  full 
of  the  great  event  that  it  gave  him  evident  delight  to  tell  me  the 
whole  story.  He  described  vividly  the  arrival  of  the  first  tidings 
of  disaster,  and  his  own  and  the  several  Cabinet  members'  dismay 
at  the  awful  prospect  thus  opened,  and  their  sighs  of  relief  when  the 
telegraph  announced  the  appearance  of  "the  little  cheese-box" 
which  drove  the  Rebel  Goliath  off  the  field. 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  page  327. 

The  Country's  Debt  to  Lincoln  and  Worden  for  the  "Monitor's"  Success 

The  fight  of  the  Monitor  and  Merrimac  changed  all  the  con- 
ditions of  naval  warfare. 

After  the  victory  was  gained,  the  President,  Captain  Fox  and 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  451 

others  went  on  board  the  Monitor,  and  Captain  Worden  was  re- 
quested by  the  President  to  narrate  the  history  of  the  encounter. 

Captain  Worden  did  so  in  a  modest  manner,  and  apologized 
for  not  being  able  better  to  provide  for  his  guests.  The  President 
smilingly  responded : 

"Some  uncharitable  people  say  that  'old  Bourbon'  is  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  the  fighting  qualities  of  some  of  our  generals  in 
the  field,  but,  Captain,  after  the  account  we  have  heard  to-day,  no 
one  will  say  that  any  'Dutch  courage'  is  needed  on  board  the 
Monitor.'' 

"  It  never  has  been,  sir,  "  modestly  observed  the  captain. 

Captain  Fox  then  gave  a  description  of  what  he  saw  of  the 
engagement  and  characterized  it  as  indescribably  grand.  Then, 
turning  to  the  President,  he  continued: 

"  Now,  standing  here  on  the  deck  of  this  battle-scarred  vessel, 
the  first  genuine  ironclad — the  victor  in  the  first  fight  of  ironclads 
— let  me  make  a  confession,  and  perform  an  act  of  simple  justice : 

"  I  never  fully  believed  in  armored  vessels  until  I  saw  this 
battle.  I  know  all  the  facts  which  united  to  give  us  the  Monitor. 
I  withhold  no  credit  from  Captain  Ericsson,  her  inventor,  but  I 
know  that  the  country  is  principally  indebted  to  President  Lincoln 
for  the  construction  of  the  vessel,  and  for  the  success  of  her  trial  to 
Captain  Worden,  her  commander. " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  194. 

The  President's  Intercession  Prevents  the  Dismissal  of  a  Faithful  Officer 

(Captain)  Eckert,  accompanied  by  Sanford,  went  to  the  War 
Department  that  afternoon,  and  was  ushered  into  the  Secretary's 
presence,  and  .  .  stood  for  at  least  ten  minutes  while  Stanton  con- 
tinued to  write  at  his  desk,  without  looking  up  to  see  who  his  callers 
were.     Finally  Stanton  turned  and  asked  Eckert  what  he  wanted. 

The  latter  replied,  "  Mr.  Sanford  tells  me  that  you  have  sent  for 
me,  and  I  am  here.  " 

Then  Stanton,  in  a  loud  voice,  said  he  understood  that  Captain 
Eckert  had  been  neglecting  his  duties,  and  was  absent  from  his 
office  much  of  the  time,  and  allowed  newspaper  men  to  have  access 
to  the  telegraphic  office;  also  that  he  was  an  unfit  person  for  the 
important  position  he  occupied 


452  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Eckert  replied  that  he  had  not  neglected  his  duties ;  that  he  had 
attended  to  them  strictly  and  faithfully ;  that  any  statements  to  the 
contrary  were  false ;  that  for  over  three  months  he  had  been  at  his 
post  of  duty  almost  constantly,  and  had  hardly  taken  off  his  clothes 
during  that  time  except  to  change  his  linen ;  that  he  had  remained 
in  his  office  many  times  all  night  long,  and  that  he  seldom  slept  in 
his  bed  at  his  hotel ;  and,  finally,  inasmuch  as  it  appeared  that  his 
services  were  not  acceptable,  he  insisted  upon  his  resignation  being 
accepted. 

Just  then  Eckert  felt  an  arm  placed  on  his  shoulder,  and,  sup- 
posing it  to  be  that  of  Sanford,  who  had  all  this  time  remained 
standing  with  him,  turned  around,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that, 
instead,  it  was  the  hand  of  the  President,  who  had  entered  the 
room  while  the  discussion  was  going  on. 

Lincoln,  still  with  his  hand  on  the  Captain's  shoulder,  said  to 
Stanton : 

"Mr.  Secretary,  I  think  you  must  be  mistaken  about  this 
young  man  neglecting  his  duties,  for  I  have  been  a  daily  caller  at 
General  McClellan's  headquarters  for  the  last  three  or  four  months, 
and  I  have  always  found  Eckert  at  his  post.  I  have  been  there 
often  before  breakfast,  and  in  the  evening  as  well,  and  frequently 
late  at  night,  and  several  times  before  dawn,  to  get  the  latest  news 
from  the  army.  Eckert  was  always  there,  and  I  never  observed 
any  reporters  or  outsiders  in  the  office. "    .    .    .    . 

Stanton  was  so  impressed  by  the  intercession  of  Lincoln,  San- 
ford and  Brough  that  he  quietly  took  from  his  desk  a  package  of 
papers,  and  opening  one,  said, 

"I  believe  this  is  your  resignation,  is  it  not,  sir?" 

Captain  Eckert  said  it  was ;  whereupon  Stanton  tore  it  up  and 
dropped  the  pieces  on  the  floor.  He  then  opened  another  paper 
and  said: 

"This  is  the  order  dismissing  you  from  the  army,  which  I  had 
already  signed,  but  it  will  not  be  executed." 

He  then  tore  up  the  order  of  dismissal  and  said : 

"  I  owe  you  an  apology,  Captain,  for  not  having  gone  to  General 
McClellan's  office  and  seen  for  myself  the  situation  of  aff'airs.  You 
are  no  longer  Captain  Eckert;  I  shall  appoint  you  a  major  as  soon 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  453 

as   the  commission   can  be  made   out,   and  I  shall   make  you   a 
further  acknowledgment  in  another  manner." 

So,  from  that  Sunday  afternoon,  in  February,  1862,  until  just 
before  the  close  of -the  War,  Eckert's  military  title  was '"Major." 
The  additional  acknowledgment  referred  to  by  Secretary  Stanton 
consisted  of  a  horse  and  carriage,  purchased  for  Eckert's  use  in  the 
performance  of  his  official  duties. 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates,  page  133. 

The  Fiasco  at  Harper's  Ferry 

The  President,  under  the  inspiration  received  on  the  preceding 
night,  hoped  anxiously  for  further  news.  His  confidence  in  the 
success  of  the  movement  was  unabated ;  he  felt  that  the  enemy  had 
already  been  surprised,  and  that — at  least  in  confidential  official 
circles — -he  might  say  that  McClellan  had  occupied  important  posi- 
tions in  Virginia,  and  that  troops  enough  to  resist  any  force  that 
could  be  thrown  against  him  were  already  en  route  for  Harper's 
Ferry,  where  a  pontoon  bridge,  that  would  carry  them  all  in  bri- 
gades, had  already  been  thrown.  But  as  the  shadows  lengthened 
those  who  knew  him  well  could  not  fail  to  notice  indications  of 
unusual  anxiety.  He  paced  the  floor  of  the  Executive  Chamber ;  he 
was  restless,  and  not  as  he  had  been  through  the  earlier  hours  of 
the  day,  ready  to  greet  visitors  with  a  smile  and  a  cheering  word.  It 
was  evident  that  his  confidence  was  fading,  and  that  he  was  under 
the  influence  of  misgivings  lest  his  General  had  again  deluded  him 
and  disappointed  the  coimtry Soon  after  dark  Mr.  Stan- 
ton came  from  the  War  Department  and  handed  him  a  dispatch  he 
had  just  received  from  the  General.  It  was  dated  Sandy  Hook, 
3.30  P.M.,  and  read  as  follows: 

**  The  lift-lock  is  too  small  to  permit  the  canal -boats  to  enter 
the  river,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to  construct  the  permanent  bridge 
as  I  intended.  I  shall  probably  be  obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  safe 
and  slow  plan  of  merely  covering  the  reconstruction  of  the  railroad. 
This  will  be  done  at  once,  but  will  be  tedious.  I  cannot,  as  things 
now  are,  be  sure  of  my  supplies  for  the  forces  necessary  to  seize 
Winchester,  which  is  probably  reinforced  from  Manassas.  The 
wiser  plan  is  to  rebuild  the  railroad  bridge  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and 
then  act  according  to  the  state  of  affairs." 


454 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


It  will  be  observed  that  this  dispatch  contained  no  intimation 
that  the  orders  for  the  advance  of  troops  to  sustain  those  who  had 
been  posted  in  Virginia  against  the  alleged  threatened  advance  from 
Manassas -had  been  countermanded. 


LINCOLN  IN  '62 

Before  leaving  the  Department  Stanton  had  replied  as  follows : 

"  If  the  lift-lock  is  not  big  enough,  why  cannot  it  be  made  big 
enough?     Please  answer  immediately.  " 

The  reply  to  which  was  as  follows,  and  bore  date  10.30  p.m.  : 

**  It  can  be  enlarged,  but  entire  masonry  must  be  destroyed  and 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  455 

rebuilt,  and  new  gates  made — an  operation  impossible  at  the  present 
stage  of  water,  and  requiring  many  weeks  at  any  time.  The  railroad 
bridge  can  be  rebuilt  many  weeks  before  this  could  be  done. " 

This  failure  and  the  ridiculous  excuse  for  it — that  the  engineers 
had  neglected  to  ascertain  the  width  of  the  lock  through  which  the 
boats  they  were  concentrating  were  to  pass, — gave  rise  to  a  popular 
fear  that  the  sacrifices  and  scandals  of  Ball's  Bluff  were  to  be 
repeated  on  a  grander  scale  near  Harper's  Ferry.  .... 

At  9.30  P.M.  of  the  same  day  the  President  received  a  telegram 
in  which  McClellan  asserted  that  he  knew  he  "had  acted  wisely," 
and  that  the  President  "would  cheerfully  agree  with  him  when  he 
explained,  "  but  the  kernel  of  the  message  was  found  in  the  following 
passage: 

"  It  is  impossible  for  many  days  to  more  than  supply  the  troops 
now  here  and  at  Charlestown.  We  could  not  supply  and  move  to 
Winchester  for  many  days,  and  had  I  moved  more  troops  here  they 
would  have  been  at  a  loss  for  food  on  the  Virginia  side." 

Here  was  a  "change  of  base." The  President  was 

now  compelled  to  doubt  whether  McClellan  had  ever  considered  a 
plan  with  a  view  to  its  execution,  ,  ,  .  and  that  it  was  evident  he 
would  not  execute  movements  directed  by  his  superiors.  Now,  with 
extreme  gravity  and  emphasis,  he  added,  the  time  has  come  when 
such  a  plan  for  a  movement  toward  Richmond  must  be  adopted 
and  be  promptly  executed  by  McClellan  or  his  successor 

Mr.  Stanton  could,  when  greatly  irritated,  find  relief  in  the 
use  of  forcible  expletives,  but  it  was  not  so  with  the  great-hearted, 
patient,  long-suffering  President,  with  whom  it  was  my  privilege  to 
converse  on  the  night  of  the  2  7th.  He  was  more  restless  than  I  had 
ever  seen  him,  and  I  think  more  dejected,  though  he  had  not  yet 
been  advised  of  the  countermanding  by  McClellan  of  all  orders  for 
the  forwarding  of  troops.  His  position  was  pitiable.  He  knew 
that  the  army  was  aware  that  Scott  had  recommended  McClellan 's 
advancement  and  approved  his  ability;  that  he  (McClellan)  had 
placed  his  confidential  friends  in  every  important  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac;  and  that,  whether  true  or  false,  the  country 
had  been  made  to  believe  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  army  so  wor- 
shiped their  "Little   Commander"  that   to  displace  him  might 


456  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

produce  consequences  which  he  was  not  wiUing  to  risk ;  yet  this  was 

a  measure  he  must  now  contemplate 

The  next  day  he  requested  an  early  interview  with  the  General 
and  .  .  .  Senators  Ben  Wade  and  Andrew  Johnson  were  present. 
....  They  were  henceforth  unreserved  in  their  denunciation  of 
the  General  as  "  treacherous  "  or  "incompetent ;"  and  of  the  puerility 
of  his  explanations.  It  was  probably  due  to  the  unrestained  ex- 
pression of  their  indignation  that  the  public  so  soon  learned  that  the 
President  had  a  practicable  plan  of  campaign  which  would  be 
enforced. 

Lincoln  and  Stanton,  William  D.  Kelley,  M.C,  page  25. 

"I  Could  Permit  No  One  to  Couple  the  Word  Treason  with  My  Name" 

It  was  a  part  of  Mr.  Stanton's  policy — only  too  well  carried 
out — to  prevent  frequent  personal  interviews  between  the  President 
and  myself ;  he  was  thus  enabled  to  say  one  thing  to  the  President 
and  exactly  the  opposite  to  me.  A  few  days  later,  on  the  8th  of 
March,  the  President  sent  for  me  at  an  early  hour  in  the  morning, 
about  half -past  seven,  and  I  found  him  in  his  office.  He  appeared 
much  concerned  about  something  and  soon  said  that  he  wished  to 
talk  w^ith  me  about  "a  very  ugly  matter."  I  asked  what  it  was; 
and,  as  he  still  hesitated,  1  said  that  the  sooner  and  more  directly 
such  things  were  approached  the  better. 

He  then  referred  to  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair  (the  boats  being 
too  wide  for  the  lift-locks,  etc.),  upon  which  I  found  that  the  Secre- 
tary had  deceived  me  when  he  said  the  President  was  satisfied.  I 
told  him  what  had  passed  between  the  Secretary  and  myself,  .  .  . 
at  which  he  was  much  surprised.  He  told  me  that  he  had  never 
heard  of  my  memorandum  or  of  any  explanation  on  my  part.  I 
then  gave  him  my  statement  of  the  matter,  with  which  he  expressed 
himself  entirely  satisfied. 

He  then  adverted  to  the  more  serious — and  "ugly" — matter, 
and  now  the  effects  of  the  intrigues  by  which  he  had  been  sur- 
rounded became  apparent.  He  said  that  it  had  been  represented 
to  him  (and  he  certainly  conveyed  to  me  the  distinct  impression  that 
he  regarded  these  representations  as  well  founded)  that  my  plan  of 
campaign  ....  was  conceived  with  the  traitorous  intent  of 
removing  its  defenders  from  Washington,  and  thus  giving  over  to 
the  enemy  the  Capital  and  the  Government,  thus  left  defenseless. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  457 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  that  a  man  of  Lincoln's  intelligence 
could  give  ear  to  such  abominable  nonsense.  I  was  seated  when  he 
said  this,  concluding  with  the  remark  that  it  did  look  to  him  much 
like  treason.  Upon  this  I  arose,  and,  in  a  manner  perhaps  not 
altogether  decorous  towards  the  Chief  Magistrate,  desired  that  he 
should  retract  the  expression,  telling  him  that  I  could  permit  no  one 
to  couple  the  word  treason  with  my  name.  He  was  much  agitated, 
and  at  once  disclaimed  any  idea  of  considering  me  a  traitor,  and  said 
that  he  merely  repeated  what  others  had  said,  and  that  he  did  not 
believe  a  word  of  it.  I  suggested  caution  in  the  use  of  language, 
and  again  said  that  I  would  permit  no  doubt  to  be  thrown  upon  my 
intentions,  whereupon  he  again  apologized  and  disclaimed  any  pur- 
pose of  impugning  my  motives 

Before  leaving  this  subject  I  will  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
my  official  report  contained  the  statement  that  the  Secretary  had 
assured  me  of  the  President's  approval  of  my  action  when  I  returned 
from  the  upper  Potomac,  and  that  this  assertion  was  never  denied. 
Moreover,  no  other  statement  made  in  the  memorandum  was  ever 
denied  or  objected  to  either  by  the  President  or  the  Secretary  and 
that  memorandum  shows  very  clearly  that  there  was  no  ground  of 
dissatisfaction  with  my  conduct,  but  that  I  did  precisely  what  I 
told  them  I  should  do  under  given  circumstances. 

McClellan's  Own  Story,  page  19s. 


That  Discrepancy  a  "Convenient  Mistake"  of  Stanton's 

At  this  time  I  received  the  following  letter  from  the  President: 

"Washington,  April  9,  1862. 

"My  dear  Sir: — Your  despatches  complaining  that  you  are 
not  properly  sustained,  while  they  do  not  offend  me,  do  pain  me 
very  much 

"  I  do  not  forget  that  I  was  satisfied  with  your  arrangement  to 
leave  Banks  at  Manassas  Junction ;  but  when  that  arrangement  was 
broken  up,  and  nothing  was  substituted  for  it,  of  course  I  was  con- 
strained to  substitute  something  for  it  myself.  And  allow  me  to 
ask,  Do  you  really  think  I  should  permit  the  line  from  Richmond 
via  Manassas  Junction  to  this  city  to  be  entirely  open,  except  what 


4s8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

resistance  could  be  presented  by  less  Lhan  20,000  unorganized 
troops  ?  This  is  a  question  which  the  country  will  not  allow  me  to 
evade. 

"There  is  a  curious  mystery  about  the  number  of  troops  now 
with  you.  When  I  telegraphed  you  on  the  6th,  saying  you  had  over 
a  hundred  thousand  with  you,  I  had  just  obtained  from  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  a  statement,  taken,  as  he  said,  from  your  own  returns, 
making  108,000  then  with  you  and  en  route  to  you.  You  now  say 
you  will  have  but  85,000  when  all  en  route  to  you  shall  have  reached 
you.     How  can  the  discrepancy  of  23,000  be  accounted  for?    .    .    . 

"I  suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward  for  you  is 
with  you  by  this  time,  and  if  so,  I  think  it  is  the  precise  time  for  you 
to  strike  a  blow.  By  delay  the  enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you 
— that  is,  he  will  gain  faster  by  fortifications  and  reinforcements 
than  you  can  by  reinforcements  alone.  And  once  more  let  me  tell 
you,  it  is  indispensable  to  you  that  you  strike  a  blow.  I  axa  power- 
less to  help  this.  You  will  do  me  the  justice  to  remember  that  I 
always  insisted  that  going  down  the  bay  in  search  of  a  field,  instead 
of  fighting  at  or  near  Manassas,  was  only  shifting,  and  not  surmount- 
ing, a  difficulty ;  that  we  would  fight  the  same  enemy  and  the  same 
or  equal  entrenchments  at  either  place.  The  country  will  not  fail 
to  note,  is  now  noting,  that  the  present  hesitation  to  move  upon 
entrenched  enemy  is  but  the  story  of  Manassas  repeated. 

"  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  I  have  never  written  you  or  spoken  to 
you  in  greater  kindness  of  feeling  than  now,  or  with  a  fuller  purpose 
to  sustain  you,  so  far  as,  in  my  most  anxious  judgment,  I  consist- 
ently can.     But  you  must  act. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 


.  .  .  Asregards  the  discrepancy  of  23,000  men,  it  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  my  estimate  was  made  from  the  actual  latest  returns  of 
the  men  present  for  duty,  and  was  correct.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  mmiber  furnished  the  President  was  the  aggregate — present  and 
absent — a  convenient  mistake  not  unfrequently  made  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  War. 

McCkllan  s  Own  Story,  page  276 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  459 

How  Vallandigham  and  Others  Hampered  the  President        / 

To  avoid  misinterpretation  and  misrepresentation,  I  pause  to 
say  that  I  allude  to  no  Democrat  who  believed,  as  Jackson  had  done, 
that  the  Union  was  a  blessing  worth  preserving,  when  I  refer  to 
the  leaders  of  the  reactionary  force  of  that  day.  They  were 
Northern  proslavery  disunionists  who  preferred  the  destruction  of 
the  Union  to  the  destruction  of  slavery,  of  which  Clement  L.  Val- 
landigham was  a  brilliant  type.  They  sought  the  advantages  of 
union  and  organization,  and  established  secret  orders — such  as  the 
"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle;"  and  when  addressing  meetings 
of  illiterate  men  in  opposition  to  the  enforcement  of  the  draft,  to  the 
suspension  of  the  habeas  corpus,  to  the  enlistment  of  colored  troops 
in  the  army,  or  to  any  other  vital  measures,  not  infrequently  spoke 
of  President  Lincoln  as  a  "mulatto  buffoon."  In  their  familiar 
parlance  those  who  supported  the  Administration,  in  its  efforts  to 
save  the  country,  were  characterized  as  "  Black  Republican  Dis- 
unionists" and  "nigger  lovers,"  and,  if  they  wore  the  national 
uniform,  as  "  Lincoln's  hirelings.  " 

But  for  the  instant,  earnest  and  persistent  co-operation  of 
national  Democrats,  the  Government  could  not,  I  believe,  have 
crushed  the  rebellion  and  restored  the  Union.  Dix  and  Stanton 
were  Democrats  who  had  served  till  the  close  of  Buchanan's  admin- 
istration in  his  Cabinet;  Morton,  of  Indiana,  and  Tod  and  Brough, 
of  Ohio,  who  were  distinguished  for  courage  and  energy  among  the 
illustrious  group  of  War  Governors,  had  been  life-long  Democrats, 
and  I  might  add  the  names  of  hundreds  of  Democrats  of  State  or 
national  reputation  who  promptly  sought  service  in  the  Union 
army.  But  the  highest  enthusiasm  for  the  national  cause  was 
exhibited  by  the  rank  and  file  who,  ignoring  party  names  or  dis- 
tinctions, with  the  jubilant  shout: 

"We  are  coming.  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred  thousand  more," 

swarmed  into  the  Union  camps  of  every  State,  and  illustrated 
the  popular  devotion  to  the  country  and  flag  by  compelHng  the 
President  to  accept  the  services  of  tens  of  thousands  of  men  for 
whom  he  had  not  called,  but  whose  services  would  evidently  be 
needed.  Yet  the  headquarters  of  the  General-in-chief  (McClellan) 
soon  became  a  rendezvous  for  the  master-spirits  of  the  reactionary 
force.     Here  frequent  conferences   were  held,   in    which    Messrs. 


46o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Vallandigham  and  others  were  conspicuous.  These  meetings 
were  characterized  by  a  prominent  Democrat  (Moses  F.  Odell  of 
New  York),  who  revolted  from  their  objects,  as  a  "continuing 
caucus  for  the  consideration  of  plans  of  resistance  to  all  measures 
which  proposed  to  strengthen  the  army  or  the  navy;  to  provide 
means  for  their  pay,  sustenance,  the  mtmitions  of  war,  and  means 
of  transportation ;  and  to  devise  means  of  embarrassing  the  Govern- 
ment by  constitutional  quibbles  and  legal  subtleties. " 

Lincoln  and  Stanton,  William  D.  Kelley,  M.  C,  page  s. 

"  All  Quiet  along  the  Potomac  " 

"All  quiet  along  the  Potomac,"  they  say, 

Except  now  and  then  a  stray  picket 
Is  shot,  as  he  walks  on  his  beat  to  and  fro, 

By  a  rifleman  hid  in  the  thicket, 

'Tis  nothing — a  private  or  two  now  and  then, 
Will  not  count  in  the  news  of  the  battle ; 

Not  an  ofBcer  lost — only  one  of  the  men, 
Moaning  out,  all  alone,  the  death-rattle. 

"All  quiet  along  the  Potomac"  to-night, 

Where  the  soldiers  lie  peacefully  dreaming, 

Their  tents  in  the  rays  of  the  clear  autumn  moon, 
Or  the  light  of  the  watch-fire,  are  gleaming. 

A  tremulous  sigh  of  the  gentle  night-wind 

Through  the  forest-leaves  softly  is  creeping ; 

While  stars  up  above,  with  their  glittering  eyes, 
Keep  guard,  for  the  army  is  sleeping. 

There's  only  the  sound  of  the  lone  sentry's  tread, 
As  he  tramps  from  the  rock  to  the  fountain, 

And  thinks  of  the  two  in  the  low  trundle-bed 
Far  away  in  the  cot  on  the  mountain. 

His  musket  falls  slack ;  his  face,  dark  and  grim, 

Grows  gentle  with  memories  tender, 
As  he  mutters  a  prayer  for  the  children  asleep, 

For  their  mother:  "May  Heaven  defend  her!" 


All  Quiet  along  the  Potomac,  Ethel  Lynn  Beers,  in  Stedman's  An  American  Anthology,  page  454. 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  461 

"I  Will  Hold  McClellan's  Horse" 

General  McClellan  had  little  or  no  conception  of  the  greatness 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  As  time  went  on,  he  began  to  show  his  con- 
tempt of  the  President,  frequently  allowing  him  to  wait  in  the  ante- 
room of  his  house  while  he  transacted  business  with  others.  [On 
one  occasion  McClellan  went  up  stairs  to  bed,  leaving  the  President 
and  an  attendant  waiting  below. — ^W.  W.] 

The  discourtesy  was  so  open  that  McClellan's  staff  noticed  it, 
and  newspaper  correspondents  commented  on  it.  The  President 
was  too  keen  not  to  see  the  situation,  but  he  was  strong  enough  to 
ignore  it.     It  was  a  battle  he  wanted  from  McClellan,  not  deference. 

"  I  will  hold  McClellan's  horse,  if  he  will  only  bring  us  success,  " 
he  said  one  day. 

"  Ahe  "  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  241. 

"  A  Special  Talent  for  a  Stationary  Engine  " 

Because  of  McClellan's  "masterly  inactivity"  the  words,  "All 
quiet  along  the  Potomac  "  became  a  by-word  of  bitterness  through- 
out the  North. 

Lincoln  said  one  day  with  a  sad  smile : 

"  McClellan  is  a  great  engineer,  but  he  has  a  special  talent  for  a 
stationary  engine." 
w.  w. 

McClellan  and  the  Peninsular  Campaign 

In  the  Peninsula,  McClellan's  hallucinations  as  to  the  over- 
whelming strength  of  the  enemy  in  front  of  him  continued.  He 
drilled  and  reviewed  and  dug  entrenchments,'  like  the  practical 
engineer  that  he  was,  and  imperiously  demanded  more  men,  more 
guns  and  more  support  from  Washington,  where  cabals  in  his  imagi- 
nation were  always  at  work  to  hinder  the  fruition  of  his  simplest 
plans. 

Stanton  once  declared  that  if  McClellan  "  had  a  million  men  he 
would  swear  the  enemy  had  two  million,  and  then  he  would  sit 
down  in  the  mud  and  yell  for  three.  " 

In  his  (McClellan's  )  private  letters  at  this  time  he  wrote  of 
Washington  as  that  "sink  of  iniquity"  and  of  Lincoln,  Stanton  and 
their  associates  as  those  "treacherous  hounds,  "  but  in  May,  detach- 
ments of  his  army  met  bodies  of  Confederates,  and  some  expensive 


462  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

t 

fighting  was  indulged  in  in  an  effort  to  open  the  way  to  Richmond. 
In  June  the  Union  advance  guard  had  reached  a  point  within  four 
miles  of  the  secession  capital.  Because  of  the  extreme  delibera- 
tion of  his  movements  the  Confederates  were  enabled  to  mass  a  large 
army  in  front  of  him,  and  after  a  number  of  sanguinary  engagements 
in  which  victory  seemed  to  rest  with  the  Union  army,  its  commander 
withdrew  to  Harrison's  Landing,  and  thus  disappointingly  ended 
the  campaign,  ill-starred  from  the  moment  it  was  undertaken. 

The  army  had  come  nearer  to  Richmond  than  it  was  destined 
to  do  again  for  three  years.  It  had  fought  bravely  in  a  number  of 
engagements  and  displayed  at  many  points  personal  courage  and 
collective  morale  superior  to  that  of  the  force  arrayed  against  it,  but 
the  movement  had  failed — McClellan  declared,  because  of  the  omis- 
sion of  Washington  to  sustain  him  with  the  necessary  number  of 
troops 

Lincoln's  personal  disappointment  at  the  result  reached  the 
stage  of  the  severest  distress,  but  he  did  not  give  way  to  discourage- 
ment  

His  communications  to  McClellan  were  indulgent  and  fatherly, 
while  the  General  busily  employed  himself  in  a  work  for  which  he 
thought  himself  entitled  to  a  great  deal  of  credit,  that  of  "saving" 
his  army.  Mr,  Lincoln,  unable  to  gain  an  intelligible  opinion  of  the 
situation  from  conflicting  reports,  determined  to  visit  the  camp  in 
person,  and  upon  the  8th  of  July  arrived  at  Harrison's  Landing. 
He  came  back  little  cheered  by  what  he  had  seen.  The  public 
patience  was  becoming  well  exhausted,  as  was  also  the  President's. 
So  favorably  impressed  was  he  by  this  time  with  Halleck's  military 
abilities,  that  on  July  ii,  1862,  that  General  was  brought  to  Wash- 
ington to  take  the  post  of  General-in-chief,  an  office  which  while 
he  held  it,  as  Nicolay  and  Hay  observe,  was  never  more  than 
a  chief -of -staff  to  the  President.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  now  become 
his  own  General-in-chief,  and  held  that  post  masterfully  until 
Grant  came  forward  to  lend  his  commanding  genius  to  the  work 
of  solving  the  problems  of  the  war. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  Ph.D.,  page  233. 

How  the  Retreat  Looked  from  the  Southern  Side 

Perhaps  if  McClellan  had  known  that  he  was  ^^\Xn^  ei^ty-one 
thousand  men  and  not  two  hundred  thousand  be  might  have  acted 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  463 

with  more  confidence.  Mr.  Lincoln  telegraphed  June  26th  that 
his  suggestion  of  the  probability  of  his  being  overwhelmed  by  two 
hundred  thousand  men,  and  talking  about  where  the  responsibility 
would  belong,  pained  him  very  much 

The  Washington  War  Secretary  [Stanton]  was  confident  of 
Federal  success  as  late  as  the  evening  of  June  29th,  for  he  tele- 
graphed Hon.  William  H.  Seward,  at  New  York,  that  his  inference 
is,  from  what  has  taken  place  around  Richmond,  that  McClellan  will 
be  in  the  city  within  two  days ;  and  the  day  after,  to  General  Wool, 
at  Fort  Monroe,  that  McClellan  had  a  favorable  position  near  Rich- 
mond, and  that  it  looked  more  like  occupying  that  city  than  any 
time  before. 

At  11.30  on  the  night  of  June  30th  [1862]  the  Union  Army 
Commander  [McClellan]  had  begun  to  realize  that  his  "change  of 
base, "  as  he  termed  it,  would  not  be  attended  with  favorable  results, 
and  telegraphed  Mr.  Stanton  that  he  feared  he  would  be  forced  to 
abandon  his  material  in  order  to  save  his  men,  under  cover  of  the 
gunboats,  and  that  if  none  of  them  escaped,  they  would  at  least 
have  done  honor  to  the  country. 

On  July  ist  his  army  was  at  Haxall's  plantation,  on  the  James, 
and  McClellan  says  he  dreaded  the  result  if  he  was  attacked ;  that  if 
possible  he  would  retire  that  night  to  Harrison's  Bar,  where  the 
gunboats  could  aid  in  covering  his  position. 

"  I  now  pray  for  time  [wrote  ]\IcClellan].  We  have  failed  to 
win  only  because  overpowered  by  superior  numbers.  " 

On  July  2nd  McClellan's  army  had  succeeded  in  reaching  Har- 
rison's Landing.  He  told  Mr.  Lincoln  that  if  he  were  not  attacked 
during  that  day  his  men  would  be  ready  to  repulse  the  enemy  on 
the  morrow. 

On  the  same  day  he  received  a  dispatch  from  President  Lincoln 
in  that  vein  of  humor  for  which  he  was  remarkable : 

"  If  you  think  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  take  Richmond 
just  now,  I  do  not  ask  you  to.  Try  just  now  to  save  the  army 
material  and  personnel,  and  I  will  strengthen  it  for  the  offensive 
again  as  fast  as  I  can.  The  governments  of  eighteen  States  offered 
me  a  new  levy  of  three  hundred  thousand,  which  I  accepted.  " 

And  in  a  letter  of  the  same  date,  with  reference  to  sending  him 
re-enforcements.  Mr.  Lincoln  adds  a  postscript ; 


464  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  If  at  any  time  you  feel  able  to  take  the  offensive,  you  are  not 
restrained  from  doing  so.  " 

....  McClellan  resumed  the  habit  he  contracted  in  West 
Virginia  of  issuing  proclamations.  On  July  4th  the  following  was 
read  to  his  army  from  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
camped  near  Harrison's  Landing: 

"Soldiers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac:  Your  achieve- 
ments of  the  last  ten  days  have  illustrated  the  ability  and  endurance 
of  the  American  soldier.  Attacked  by  vastly  superior  forces,  and 
without  hope  of  reinforcements,  you  have  succeeded  in  changing 
your  base  of  operations  by  a  flank  movement,  regarded  as  the  most 
hazardous  of  military  expedients.  You  have  saved  all  your  mate- 
rial, all  your  trains,  and  all  your  guns,  except  a  few  lost  in  battle. 
Upon  your  march  you  have  been  assailed  day  after  day  with  des- 
perate fury  by  men  of  the  same  race  and  nation,  skillfully  massed 
and  led,  and  under  every  disadvantage  of  numbers,  and  necessarily 
of  position  also.  You  have  in  every  conflict  beaten  back  your  foes 
with  enormous  slaughter. 

(Signed)     "Geo.  B.  McClellan, 

"Major-General  Commanding." 

By  a  series  of  brilliant  movements  General  Lee  had  driven  an 
army  superior  to  his  in  numbers,  from  the  gates  of  his  capital,  and 
had  fully  restored  himself  in  the  confidence  of  his  people  by  the  exer- 
cise of  military  genius  and  by  his  personal  conduct  and  supervision 
of  the  troops  on  the  battlefield.  It  might  be  said  of  him,  as  Addison 
wrote  of  the  great  Marlborough,  that 

"  His  mighty  soul  inspired  repulsed  battalions  to  engage, 
And  taught  a  doubtful  battle  where  to  rage. " 

General  Lee,  Fitzhugh  Lee,  His  Nephew  and  Cavalry  Commander,  page  169. 

"I  Should  Like  to  Borrow  the  Army  for  a  Day  or  Two" 

In  November,  1862,  I  found  myself  in  Washington,  whither  I 
had  been  summoned  to  attend  a  council  of  women  connected  with 
the  Sanitary  Commission.  It  was  a  gloomy  time  all  over  the 
country.  The  heart  of  the  people  had  grown  sick  with  hope  de- 
ferred ;  and  the  fruitless  undertakings  and  timid,  dawdling  policy 
of  General  McClellan  had  perplexed  and  discouraged  all  loyalists, 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  405 

and  strengthened  and  made  bold  all  traitors.  The  army  was 
always  entrenched  or  entrenching.  Its  advance  was  forbidden  by 
the  autumnal  rains  and  the  policy  of  its  commanding  General, 
whatever  that  might  have  been.  The  Rebel  army  was  in  front,  and 
every  day  a  new  crop  of  rumors  was  harvested  in  reference  to  its 
purpose.  One  hour,  "Washington  was  safe!"  and  "All  was  quiet 
on  the  Potomac!"  The  next,  "The  Rebels  were  marching  on  to 
Washington!"  "They  were  blocking  our  river  communications!" 
"They  were  threatening  to  overwhelm  our  forces!"  or,  "They  had 
already  taken  our  position!"     Despondency  sat  on  every  face, 

"  I  wonder  whether  McClellan  means  to  do  anything!"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln  one  day  to  a  friend.  "  I  should  like  to  borrow  the  army  of 
him  for  a  day  or  two.  " 

My  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  534. 

Why  Antietam  Was  a  Drawn  Battle 

When  the  Woman's  Council  adjourned,  we  were  glad  to  accept 
an  invitation  to  call  on  the  President  in  a  body.  The  President  had 
appointed  an  early  hour  for  our  reception. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  shock  which  his  presence  gave  us. 
Not  more  ghastly  or  rigid  was  his  dead  face,  as  he  lay  in  his  coffin, 
than  on  that  never-to-be-forgotten  night.  His  introverted  look  and 
his  half -staggering  gait  were  like  those  of  a  man  walking  in  sleep. 
He  seemed  literally  bending  under  the  weight  of  his  burdens.  A 
deeper  gloom  rested  on  his  face  than  on  that  of  any  person  I  had 
ever  seen.  He  took  us  each  by  the  hand  mechanically,  in  an  awk- 
ward, absent  way,  until  my  friend  Mrs.  Hoge,  of  Chicago,  and  my- 
self were  introduced,  when  the  name  of  the  city  of  our  residence 
appeared  to  catch  his  attention,  and  he  sat  down  between  us. 

"So  you  are  from  Chicago!"  he  said,  familiarly;  "you  are  not 
scared  by  Washington  mud,  then ;  for  you  can  beat  us  all  to  pieces 
in  that."      .... 

It  was  explained  to  him  that  we  were  all  identified  with  the 
Sanitary  Commission,  and  that  we  had  called,  before  separating 
to  our  widely  divergent  homes,  to  obtain  from  him  some  word  of 
encouragement — something  to  cheer  and  stimulate. 

"I  have  no  word  of  encouragement  to  give!"  was  his  sad  and 
30 


466  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

blunt  reply.       "The  military  situation  is  far  from  bright;  and  the 
coimtry  knows  it  as  well  as  I  do.  " 

There  was  no  attempt  at  question  or  answer ;  but  a  momentary 
deep  and  painful  silence  settled  on  his  auditors. 

"The  fact  is,  "  he  continued  after  a  pause,  "the  people  haven't 
yet  made  up  their  minds  that  we  are  at  war  with  the  South.  They 
haven't  buckled  down  to  the  determination  to  fight  this  war 
through;  for  they  have  got  the  idea  into  their  heads  that  we  are 
going  to  get  out  of  this  fix,  somehow,  by  strategy!  That's  the 
word — strategy!  General  McClellan  thinks  he  is  going  to  whip  the 
Rebels  by  strategy ;  and  the  army  has  got  the  same  notion.  They 
have  no  idea  that  the  War  is  to  be  carried  on  and  put  through 
by  hard,  tough  fighting,  that  it  will  hurt  somebody;  and  no  head- 
way is  going  to  be  made  while  this  delusion  lasts.  " 

Some  one  ventured  to  remonstrate  against  this,  and  reminded 
the  President  how  hundreds  of  thousands  had  rushed  to  arms  at  the 
call  of  the  country ;  how  bravely  the  army  and  navy  had  fought  at 
Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  Pea  Ridge,  Shiloh  and  New  Orleans; 
and  how  gloriously  they  had  triumphed. 

He  admitted  this,  but  returned  to  his  first  statement. 

"The  people  haven't  made  up  their  minds  that  we  are  at  war, 
I  tell  you!"  he  repeated,  with  great  positiveness. 

"  They  think  there  is  a  royal  road  to  peace,  and  that  General 
McClellan  is  to  find  it.  The  army  has  not  settled  down  into  the 
conviction  that  we  are  in  a  terrible  war  that  has  got  to  be  fought 
out — no ;  and  the  officers  haven't  either.  When  you  came  to  Wash- 
ington, ladies,  some  two  weeks  ago,  but  very  few  soldiers  came 
on  the  trains  with  you — that  you  will  all  remember.  But  when  you 
go  back  you  will  find  the  trains  and  every  conveyance  crowded 
with  them.  You  won't  find  a  city  on  the  route,  a  town,  or  a  village, 
where  soldiers  and  officers  on  furlough  are  not  plenty  as  blackberries. 
There  are  whole  regiments  that  have  two-thirds  of  their  men  absent 
— a  great  many  by  desertion,  and  a  great  many  on  leave  granted  by 
company  officers,  which  is  almost  as  bad. 

"  General  McClellan  is  all  the  time  calling  for  more  troops, 
more  troops;  and  they  are  sent  to  him;  but  the  deserters  and  fur- 
loughed  men  outnumber  the  recruits.  To  fill  up  the  army  is  like 
imdertaking  to  shovel  fleas.  You  take  up  a  shovelful"  (suiting 
the  word  to  an  indescribably  comical  gesture),  "but  before  you  can 


,^r^ 


J* 


^  —    r»-  Wit  -^ 


Proin  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay. 

PRESIDENT  LINCOLN  VISITS  GENERAL  McCLELLAN'S  HEADQUARTERS  JUST  AFTER  THE 

BATTLE  OF  ANTIETAM 
*  Little  Mac  "  stands  directly  facing  the  President. 

(46  7) 


408  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

dump  them  anywhere  they  are  gone.  It  Is  like  trying  to  ride  a 
balky  horse.  You  coax,  and  cheer,  and  spur,  and  lay  on  the  whip ; 
but  you  don't  get  ahead  an  inch — there  you  stick !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  our  men  desert?"  we  asked,  incredulously; 
for  in  our  glorifying  of  the  soldiers  we  had  not  conceived  of  our  men 
becoming  deserters. 

"  That  is  pist  what  I  mean ! "  replied  the  President.  "  And  the 
desertion  of  the  army  is  just  now  the  most  serious  evil  we  have  to 
encounter.  At  the  battle  of  Antietam,  General  McClellan  had  the 
names  of  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  men  on  the 
army  rolls.  Of  these,  seventy  thousand  were  absent  on  leave 
granted  by  company  officers,  which,  as  I  said  before,  is  almost  as  bad 
as  desertion.  For  the  men  ought  not  to  ask  for  furloughs  with  the 
enemy  drawn  up  before  them,  nor  ought  the  officers-  to  grant  them. 

"About  twenty  thousand  more  were  in  the  hospital,  or  were 
detailed  to  other  duties,  leaving  only  some  ninety  thousand  to  give 
battle  to  the  enemy.  General  McClellan  went  into  the  fight  with 
this  number.  But  in  two  hours  after  the  battle  commenced  thirty 
thousand  had  straggled  or  deserted,  and  so  the  battle  w^as  fought 
with  sixty  thousand — and  as  the  enemy  had  about  the  same  number 
it  proved  a  drawn  game.  The  Rebel  army  had  coiled  itself  up  in 
such  a  position  that  if  McClellan  had  only  had  the  seventy  thou- 
sand absentees,  and  the  thirty  thousand  deserters,  he  could  have 
surrounded  Lee,  captured  the  whole  Rebel  army,  and  ended  the  War 
at  a  stroke  without  a  battle. 

"  We  have  a  Stragglers '  Camp  out  here  in  Alexandria,  in  con- 
nection with  the  Convalescent  Camp,  and  from  that  camp  in  three 
months  General  Butler  has  returned  to  their  regiments  seventy-five 
thousand  deserters  and  stragglers  who  have  been  arrested  and  sent 
there.  Don't  you  see  that  the  country  and  the  army  fail  to  realize 
that  we  are  engaged  in  one  of  the  greatest  wars  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  and  which  can  only  be  ended  by  hard  fighting?  General  Mc- 
Clellan is  responsible  for  the  delusion  that  is  untoning  the  whole 
army — that  the  South  is  to  be  conquered  by  strategy.  " 

"Is  not  death  the  penalty  of  desertion?"  we  inquired. 

"Certainly  it  is." 

"  And  does  it  not  lie  with  the  President  to  enforce  this  penalty? " 

"Yes." 

"  Why  not  enforce  it  then  ?     Before  many  soldiers  had  suffered 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLA'N'  469 

death  for  desertion,  this  wholesale  depletion  of  the  army  would  be 
ended." 

"Oh,  no,  no!"  replied  the  President,  shaking  his  head  ruefully. 
"That  can't  be  done;  it  woiild  be  unmerciful,  barbarous. " 

"  But  is  it  not  more  merciful  to  stop  desertions,  so  that  when 
a  battle  comes  off  it  may  be  decisive,  instead  of  being  a  drawn 
game,  as  you  say  Antietam  was?" 

"  It  might  seem  so.  But  if  I  should  go  to  shooting  men  by 
scores  for  desertion,  I  should  have  such  a  hullabaloo  about  my  ears 
as  I  haven't  had  yet,  and  I  should  deserve  it.  You  can't  order  men 
shot  by  dozens  or  twenties.  People  won't  stand  it  and  they  ought 
not  to  stand  it.  No,  we  must  change  the  condition  of  things  in 
some  other  way. " 

Aly  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  sss. 

McClellan  Recalled  by  Lincoln  after  Being  Dismissed  from  His  Command 

Note  of  Explanation. — This  order  of  September  2,  1862,  was  the 
last  order  ever  issued  to  General  McClellan  giving  him  any  command. 
He  seems  never  to  have  known  that  it  actually  appeared  in  two 
forms  within  twenty-four  hours,  first  as  an  order  from  the  President 
by  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  second  as  a  simple  order  of  Gen- 
eral Halleck.  The  history  of  its  origin  and  modification  is  obscure. 
....  When  these  events  are  seen  in  close  relation  every  honest 
mind  must  be  filled  with  amazement  at  the  duplicity  with  which 
McClellan  was  surrounded 

On  the  morning  of  September  i,  McClellan  went  up  from 
Alexandria  to  Washington,  and  now  Halleck  verbally  placed  him  in 
charge  of  the  defences  of  Washington,  but  expressly  forbade  him  to 
exercise  any  control  over  the  troops  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  or 
the  Army  of  Virginia 

Early  in  the  morning  of  September  2 ,  the  President,  accompanied 
by  General  Halleck,  went  to  General  McClellan 's  house  and  found  him 
alone.  They  told  him  the  Capital  was  lost.  The  President  asked 
him  if  "under  the  circumstances"  (to  wit,  the  recent  treatment  of 
Stanton  and  Halleck,  and  the  insulting  general  order  of  August  30) 
he  would  "resume  command  and  do  the  best  that  could  be  done. " 
The  instant  acceptance  of  this  vast  responsibility  by  McClellan  puts 
at  rest  a  falsehood  published  on  the  authority  of  General  Burnside, 
that  McClellan  proposed  to  make  conditions,  took  time  to  consider, 


(470) 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN  471 

and  finally  only  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  others  in  accepting  the 
command.  This  story  was  a  pure  fabrication — one  of  thousands 
which  were  directed  against  McClellan,  and  which  a  deluded  public 
widely  accepted  as  true. 

General  McClellan  has  contented  himself  with  a  brief  account  of 
this  remarkable  interview,  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln,  with  deep  emotion, 
threw  himself  and  the  salvation  of  the  Capital  and  the  Union  on  the 
General  whom  his  subordinates  had  cajoled,  slandered,  deceived, 
and  represented  to  the  people  as  disgraced.  The  terms  of  the  trust 
imposed  on  him  were  unlimited.  The  simple  words  "resume  com- 
mand" were  ample.  Two  honest  minds  were  in  contact,  and  each 
trusted  the  other.  Mr.  Lincoln  then  intended  to  give  to  McClellan 
discretionary  powers  over  military  matters,  and  neither  of  them 
stopped  to  choose  words. 

General  McClellan  went  swiftly  to  work.  General  Halleck 
went  to  inform  Secretary  Stanton  of  the  overthrow  of  their  plans 
by  the  recall  of  McClellan  to  command 

When  he  (Lincoln)  left  McClellan,  the  simple,  loyal  soldier  and 
servant  of  the  people,  he  had  to  face  men  of  a  very  different  char- 
acter. The  Cabinet  meeting  which  now  followed  was  in  many  re- 
spects the  most  remarkable  ever  held  in  Washington.  Mr.  Lincoln 
entered  it  knowing  his  men.  He  knew  that  Mr.  Chase  and  Mr.  Stan- 
ton were  Presidential  candidates,  guiding,  each  in  his  own  peculiar 
way,  their  official  conduct  and  acts  as  his  rivals  for  the  next  nomina- 
tion. He  was  perfectly  aware  that  in  this  critical  time  they  were 
ready  to  throw  on  him  all  the  responsibility  of  the  impending  ruin, 
the  loss  of  the  Capital,  if  that  were  to  be,  the  end  of  the  Union  itself 
which  might  possibly  follow.  That  they  would  seek  to  save  their 
own  reputations  at  any  cost  to  his  was  a  matter  of  course  with  such 
men.  He  had  this  advantage  in  meeting  them,  that  McClellan 's 
confidence  had  reassured  him,  while  they  were  still  in  a  state  of  wild 
alarm. 

McClellan  s  Own  Story,  page  538. 

McClellan  and  "Bap"  McNabb's  Little  Red  Rooster 

According  to  Judge  Herndon,  Lincoln  told  him,  in  1865,  the 
story  of  his  experience  with  General  McClellan,  comparing  it  to  a 
certain  cock-fight  he  once  witnessed  in  New  Salem. 

"  'Bap'   McNabb  was  famous  for  his  abilitv  in  raising  and 


472  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLX 

buying  roosters  of  prime  fighting  quality,  and  when  his  birds  fought 

the  attendance  was  large One  night  there  was  a  fight 

on  the  schedule Bap  brought  a  little  red  rooster  whose 

fighting  qualities  had  been  well  advertised  for  days  in  advance, 
and  much  interest  was  manifested  in  the  outcome 

"They  formed  a  ring  and  tossed  in  their  fowls — Bap's  red 
rooster  along  with  the  rest.  But  no  sooner  had  the  little  beauty 
discovered  what  was  to  be  done  than  he  dropped  his  tail  and  ran. 

"  The  crowd  cheered,  while  Bap,  in  disappointment,  picked  him 
up  and  started  away,  losing  his  quarter  (the  entrance  fee),  carrying 
his  dishonored  fowl  home  and  throwing  him  down  there  in  chagrin.  " 

"  The  little  rooster,  out  of  sight  of  all  rivals,  mounted  a  wood- 
pile and  proudly  flirting  out  his  feathers,  crowed  with  all  his  might. 
Bap  looked  on  in  deep  disgust. 

"  'Yes,  you  little  cuss, '  he  exclaimed  spitefully,  '  you're  great 
on  dress  parade,  but  you're  not  worth  a  darn  in  a  fight!'  " 

"  Abe  "  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  91. 

"McClellan's  Bid  for  the  Presidency" 

General  Frank  P. -Blair,  who  was  very  close  to  the  President 
while  the  War  lasted,  told  Richard  Vaux  this  story : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  had  become  impatient  at  McClellan's  delay  on  the 
Peninsula,  and  asked  Frank  Blair  to  go  w4th  him  to  see  the  com- 
manding general.  The  country  was  a  volcano,  smoking  and  ready 
for  eruption. 

"The  distinguished  visitors  arrived  on  a  hot  day,  and  went  at 
once  to  McClellan's  headquarters.  They  were  received  with  scant 
courtesy.  Lincoln  sat  silent  and  uncomfortable,  with  his  long  and 
sinewy  limbs  doubled  up  like  a  jack-knife,  until  the  General  broke 
the  silence  by  saying, 

"  Mr.  President,  have  you  received  the  letter  I  mailed  ^^ou  yes- 
terday?' 

"  'No,'  Lincoln  replied,  T  must  have  passed  it  on  the  way.' 

"  McClellan  then  requested  the  chief -of -staff  to  find  a  copy  of  the 
letter.  It  was  speedily  produced,  and  the  General  read  his  vitu- 
perative attack  on  Stanton,  with  reflections  on  the  conduct  of  the 
War.  Lincoln's  peaceful  smile  vanished.  When  the  letter  w^as 
ended  he  rose  quickly  and  went  out  looking  neither  to  right  nor  left, 
and  not  waiting  for  any  farewell.     He  seemed  oppressed  w^ith  a 


LINCOLN  AND  McCLELLAN 


473 


consciousness  of  the  dangers  of  the  miUtary  as  well  as  the  political 
situation.  He  drove  slowly  with  General  Blair  over  to  the  boat 
that  was  to  convey  them  from  Harrison's  Landing  back  to  Wash- 
ington. When  the  vessel  had  started,  Lincoln,  for  the  first  time 
since  leaving  McClellan's  tent,  broke  the  silence  and  said: 

"Frank,  I  understand  the  man  now.  That  letter  is  Mc- 
Clellan's bid  for  the  Presidency.  I  will  stop  that  game.  Now  is 
the  time  to  issue  the  proclamation  emancipating  the  slaves." 

Recollections  of  Lincoln,  James  M.  Scovel,  Lippincott's  Magazine,  Vol.  LXIII,  February,   1899, 
page  289. 


STATUE  OF  McCLELLAN  IN  CITY  HALL  SQUARE,  PHILADELPHIA 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation 

Lincoln's  "Compensated  Emancipation"  Defeated  in  Delaware 

By  no  means  the  least  of  the  evils  of  slavery  was  a  dread  which 
had  haunted  every  Southern  household  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Government  that  the  slaves  might  one  day  rise  in  revolt  and  take 
sudden  vengeance  on  their  masters.     This  vague  terror  was  greatly 

increased  by  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War Not  only 

were  the  people  of  the  South  battling  for  the  principle  of  slavery ; 
their  slaves  were  a  great  source  of  military  strength.  They  were 
used  by  the  Confederates  in  building  forts,  hauling  supplies,  and 
in  a  hundred  ways  that  added  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  armies 
in  the  field.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very  first  result  of  the  War 
was  to  give  adventurous  or  discontented  slaves  a  chance  to  escape 
into  Union  camps,  where,  even  against  orders  to  the  contrary, 
they  found  protection  for  the  sake  of  the  help  they  could  give  as 
cooks,  servants,  or  teamsters,  the  information  they  brought  about 
the  movements  of  the  enemy,  or  the  great  service  they  were  able  to 
render  as  guides.  Practically  therefore,  at  the  very  start,  the 
War  created  a  bond  of  mutual  sympathy  between  the  Southern 
negro  and  the  Union  volunteer 

At  some  points  this  became  a  positive  embarrassment  to 
Union  commanders.  A  few  days  after  General  Butler  took  com- 
mand of  the  Union  troops  at  Fortress  Monroe  ....  the 
agent  of  a  Rebel  master  came  to  insist  on  the  return  of  three  slaves, 
demanding  them  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Butler  replied 
that  since  their  master  claimed  Virginia  to  be  a  foreign  country 
and  no  longer  a  part  of  the  United  States,  he  could  not  at  the  same 
time  claim  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  in  force,  and  that  his 
slaves  would  not  be  given  up  unless  he  returned  and  took  the  oath 
of  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  In  reporting  this,  a  newspaper 
pointed  out  that  as  the  breastworks  and  batteries  which  had  risen 
so  rapidly  for  Confederate  defense  were  built  by  slave  labor, 
negroes  were   undoubtedly    "contraband  of  w^r, "  like  powder 

(474) 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  475 

and  shot,  and  other  military  supplies,  and  should  no  more  be 
given  back  to  the  Rebels  than  so  many  cannon  or  guns.  The 
idea  was  so  pertinent  and  the  justice  of  it  so  plain  that  the  name 
"contraband"  sprang  at  once  into  use 

In  dealing  with  this  perplexing  subject  Mr.  Lincoln  kept  in 
mind  one  of  his  favorite  stories :  the  one  on  the  Methodist  Preside 
ing  Elder  who  was  riding  about  his  circuit  during  the  spring  fresh- 
ets. A  young  and  anxious  companion  asked  how  they  should  ever 
be  able  to  cross  the  swollen  waters  of  Fox  River,  which  they  were 
approaching,  and  the  Elder  quieted  him  by  saying  that  he  made 
it  a  rule  of  his  life  never  to  cross  Fox  River  until  he  came  to  it. 

The  President,  following  this  rule,  did  not  immediately  decide 
the  question.  On  the  general  question  of  slavery,  the  President's 
mind  was  fully  made  up.  He  felt  that  he  had  no  right  to  interfere 
with  slavery  where  slavery  was  lawful,  just  because  he  himself  did 
not  happen  to  like  it,  for  he  had  sworn  to  do  all  in  his  power  to 
"preserve,  protect  and  defend  the  Government  and  its  laws,"  and 
slavery  was  lawful  in  the  Southern  States.  When  freeing  the 
slaves  should  become  necessary  in  order  to  preserve  the  Govern- 
ment, then  it  would  be  his  duty  to  free  them ;  until  that  time  came, 
it  was  equally  his  duty  to  let  them  alone 

Long  ago  he  had  considered  and  in  his  own  mind  adopted  a 

plan  of  dealing  with  the  slavery  question While   a 

member  of  Congress,  he  had  proposed  for  the  District  of  Columbia, 
that  on  condition  of  the  slave-owners  voluntarily  giving  up  their 
slaves,  they  should  be  paid  a  fair  price  for  them  by  the  Federal 
Government. 

Delaware  was  a  slave  State,  and  seemed  an  excellent  place  in 
which  to  try  this  experiment  of  "  Compensated  Emancipation, "  as 
it  was  called ;  for  there  were,  all  told,  only  1 798  slaves  left  in  that 
State.  Without  any  public  announcement  of  his  purpose,  he 
offered  to  the  citizens  of  Delaware,  through  their  representative 
in  Congress,  four  hundred  dollars  for  each  of  these  slaves,  the 
payment  to  be  made,  not  all  at  once,  but  yearly,  during  a  period  of 
thirty -one  years.  He  believed  that  if  Delaware  could  be  induced 
to  accept  this  offer,  Maryland  might  follow  her  example,  and  that 
afterward  other  States  would  allow  themselves  to  be  led  along  the 
same  easy  way.  The  Delaware  House  of  Representatives  voted 
in  favor  of  the  proposition,  but  five  of  the  nine  members  of  the 


/ 


476  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN    ' 

Delaware  Senate  scornfully  repelled  the  "abolition  bribe,  "  as  they 
chose  to  call  it,  and  the  project  withered  in  the  bud. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  184. 

A  Little  Conundrum 

President  Lincoln  replied  to  a  deputation,  one  of  many  who 
called  to  urge  immediate  slave-emancipation  when  the  proposition 
was  not  yet  framed  as  a  bill : 

"If  I  issue  a  proclamation  now,  as  you  suggest,  it  will  be  . 
.  .  ineffectual.  .  .  It  cannot  be  forced.  Now,  by  w^ay  of  illustra- 
tion, how  many  legs  will  a  sheep  have  if  you  call  his  tail  a  leg? "' 

They  all  answered  :  "Five." 

"  You  are  mistaken,  "  said  Lincoln,  "  for  calling  a  tail  a  leg  does 
not  make  it  one." 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  129. 

Writing  the  First  Draft  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 

Until  very  recently  it  has  not  been  known,  except  by  a  few 
persons,  that  Lincoln  wrote  the  first  draft  of  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  while  seated  at  Major  Eckert's  desk  in  the  cipher 
room  of  the  War  Department  telegraph  office. 

Some  of  the  incidents  connected  with  the  writing  of  the  immor- 
tal document  have  now  been  recorded  by  Eckert,  as  follows : 

"  As  you  know,  the  President  came  to  the  office  every  day  and 
invariably  sat  at  my  desk  while  there.  Upon  his  arrival  early  one 
morning  in  June,  1862,  shortly  after  McClellan's  'Seven  Days'  Fight,' 
he  asked  me  for  some  paper,  as  he  wanted  to  write  something  special. 
I  procured  some  foolscap  and  handed  it  to  him.  He  then  sat  down 
and  began  to  write.  I  do  not  recall  whether  the  sheets  were  loose 
or  had  been  made  into  a  pad.  There  must  have  been  at  least  a 
quire.  He  would  look  out  of  the  window  a  while  and  then  put  his 
pen  to  paper,  but  he  did  not  write  much  at  once.  He  would  study 
between  times  and  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  he  would  put 
down  a  line  or  two,  and  then  sit  quiet  for  a  few  minutes.  After  a 
time  he  would  resume  his  writing,  only  to  stop  again  at  intervals 
to  make  some  remark  to  me  or  to  one  of  the  cipher  operators  as  a 
fresh  dispatch  from  the  front  was  handed  to  him. 

"Once  his  eye  was  arrested  by  the  sight  of  a  large  spider-web 
stretched  from  the  lintel  of  the  portico  to  the  side  of  the  outer  win- 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION 


477 


dow-sill.  This  spider-web  was  an  institution  of  the  cipher-room 
and  harbored  a  large  colony  of  exceptionally  big  ones.  We  fre- 
quently watched 
their  antics,  and 
Assistant  -Secre- 
tary  Watson 
dubbed  them 
'Major  Eckert's 
lieutenants. ' 
Lincoln  com- 
mented on  the 
web,  and  I  told 
him  that  my 
li  eut  enants 
would  soon  re- 
port and  pay 
their  respects  to 
the  President. 
Not  long  after  a 
big  spider  ap- 
peared at  the 
cross-roads  and 
tapped  several 
times  on  the 
strands,  where- 
upon five  or  six 
others  came  out 
from  different 
dire  ctions . 
Then  what 
seemed  to  be  a 
great  confab 
took  place,  after 
which     they 

separated,  each  on  a  different  strand  of  the  web.  Lincoln  was 
much  interested  in  the  performance,  and  thereafter,  while  working 
at  the  desk,  would  often  watch  for  the  appearance  of  his  visitors. 
"On  the  first  day  Lincoln  did  not  cover  one  sheet  of  his  spe- 
cial writing  paper   (nor  indeed  on  any  subsequent  day).     When 


THINKING  IT  OVER 


478  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

ready  to  leave,  he  asked  me  to  take  charge  of  what  he  had  written 
and  not  allow  any  one  to  see  it.  I  told  him  I  would  do  this  with 
pleasure  and  would  not  read  it  myself.  '  Well, '  he  said,  'I  should 
be  glad  to  know  that  no  one  will  see  it,  although  there  is  no  ob- 
jection to  your  looking  at  it ;  but  please  keep  it  locked  up  until  I 
call  for  it  to-morrow.'  I  said  his  wishes  would  be  strictly  complied 
with. 

"  When  he  came  to  the  office  on  the  following  day  he  asked  for 
the  papers,  and  I  unlocked  my  desk  and  handed  them  to  him  and  he 
again  sat  down  to  write.  This  he  did  nearly  every  day  for  several 
weeks,  always  handing  me  what  he  had  written  when  ready  to  leave 
the  office  each  day.  Sometimes  he  would  not  write  more  than  a 
line  or  two,  and  once  I  observed  that  he  had  put  question-marks 
on  the  margin  of  what  he  had  w^ritten.  He  would  read  over  each 
day  all  the  matter  he  had  previously  written  and  revise  it,  studying 
carefully  each  sentence. 

"On  one  occasion  he  took  the  papers  away  with  him,  but  he 
brought  them  back  a  day  or  two  later.  I  became  much  interested 
in  the  matter  and  was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  he  was  engaged 
upon  something  of  great  importance,  but  did  not  know  w^hat  it  was 
until  he  had  finished  the  document  and  then  for  the  first  time  he  told 
me  that  he  had  been  writing  an  order  giving  freedom  to  the  slaves  in 
the  South,  for  the  purpose  of  hastening  the  end  of  the  War.  He  said 
he  had  been  able  to  work  at  my  desk  more  quietly  and  command  his 
thoughts  better  than  at  the  Wliite  House,  where  he  was  frequently 
interrupted.  I  still  have  in  my  possession  the  inkstand  which  he 
used  at  that  time  and  which,  as  you  know,  stood  on  my  desk  until 
after  Lee's  surrender.  The  pen  he  used  was  a  small  barrel-pen 
made  by  Gillott — such  as  were  supplied  to  the  cipher  operators. " 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates,  page  138. 

"A  Divine  Message  by  Way  of  Chicago" 

He  was  just  as  ready  to  answer,  instanter,  the  affirmation  of  his 
opponents  as  he  was  to  present  and  vindicate  his  own.  This 
striking  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mental  operations  throws  a 
flood  of  light  upon  the  searching  questions  he  propounded  to  the 
Chicago  ministers  who  called  on  him,  in  September,  1862,  to  demand 
of  him  a  proclamation  of  emancipation.  After  listening  to  their 
appeal,  he  replied,  pointedly; 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  479 

"  Now,  gentlemen,  if  I  cannot  enforce  the  Constitution  down 
South,  how  am  I  to  enforce  a  mere  Presidential  proclamation? 
Won't  the  world  sneer  at  it  as  being  as  powerless  as  the  Pope's  bull 
against  the  comet? "  and  they  went  away  sorrowing,  in  the  erroneous 
belief  that  he  had  decided  the  case  adversely 

One  of  these  ministers  felt  it  his  duty  to  make  a  more  searching 
appeal  to  the  President's  conscience.  Just  as  they  were  retiring,  he 
turned  and  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln : 

"What  you  have  said  to  us,  Mr.  President,  compels  me  to  say 
to  you  in  reply,  that  it  is  a  message  to  you  from  our  Divine  Master, 
through  me,  commanding  you,  sir,  to  open  the  doors  of  bondage 
that  the  slave  may  go  free ! " 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied,  instantly, — "That  may  be,  sir,  for  I  have 
studied  this  question,  by  night  and  by  day,  for  weeks  and  for 
months,  but  if  it  is,  as  you  say,  a  message  from  your  Divine  Master, 
is  it  not  odd  that  the  only  channel  he  could  send  it  by  was  the 
roundabout  route  by  w^ay  of  that  awful  wicked  city  of  Chicago?" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.       Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page 
334. 

Lincoln's  Own  Story  about  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 

"It  had  got  to  be  midsummer,  1862,"  said  he.  "Things  had 
gone  on  from  bad  to  worse,  until  I  felt  that  we  had  reached  the  end 
of  our  rope  on  the  plan  of  operations  we  had  been  pursuing ;  that 
we  had  about  played  our  last  card,  and  must  change  our  tactics  or 
lose  the  game! 

"I  now  determined  upon  the  adoption  of  the  emancipation 
policy;  and,  without  consultation  with  or  knowledge  of  the  Cabinet, 
I  prepared  the  original  draft  of  the  proclamation,  and,  after  much 
anxious  thought,  called  a  Cabinet  meeting  upon  the  subject.     This 

was  the  last  of  July  or  the  first  part  of  August,   1862 

This  Cabinet  meeting  took  place,  I  think  on  a  Saturday.  All  were 
present  excepting  Mr.  Blair,  the  Postmaster-General,  who  .  .  . 
came  in  subsequently. 

"  I  said  to  the  Cabinet  that  I  had  resolved  upon  this  step,  and 
had  not  called  them  together  to  ask  their  advice,  but  to  lay  the 
subject-matter  of  a  proclamation  before  them;  suggestions    .     .     . 

would  be  in  order,  after  they  had  heard  it  read Various 

suggestions  were  offered.     Secretary  Chase  wished  the  language 


48o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

stronger  in  reference  to  the  arming  of  the  blacks.  Mr.  Blair,  after 
he  came  in,  deprecated  the  policy,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  cost 
the  Administration  the  fall  elections.  Nothing,  however,  was 
offered  that  I  had  not  fully  anticipated  and  settled  in  my  own  mind, 
until  Secretary  Seward  spoke.     He  said  in  substance: 

'"Mr.  President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  question 
the  expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depression  of  the 
public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses,  is  so  great  that 
I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may  be  viewed  as  the 
last  measure  of  an  exhausted  Government,  a  cry  for  help;  the 
Government  stretching  forth  its  hands  to  Ethiopia,  instead  of  Ethi- 
opia stretching  forth  her  hands  to  the  Government. '  His  idea, ' '  said 
the  President,  "was  that  it  would  be  considered  our  last  shriek,  on 
the  retreat. 

"  '  Now, '  continued  Mr.  Seward,  'while  I  approve  the  measure, 
I  suggest,  sir,  that  you  postpone  its  issue,  until  you  can  give  it  to  the 
country  supported  by  military  success,  instead  of  issuing  it,  as  it 
would  be  now,  upon  the  greatest  disasters  of  the  War!' 

Mr.  Lincoln  continued :  "  The  wisdom  of  the  views  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  struck  me  with  very  great  force.  It  w^as  an  aspect  of 
the  case  that,  in  all  my  thought  upon  the  subject,  I  had  entirely 
overlooked.  The  result  was  that  I  put  the  draft  of  the  proclama- 
tion aside,  as  you  do  your  sketch  for  a  picture,  waiting  for  a  victory. 
From  time  to  time  I  added  or  changed  a  line,  touching  it  up  here 
and  there,  anxiously  watching  the  progress  of  events." 

"Well,  the  next  news  we  had  was  of  Pope's  disaster  at  Bull 
Run  (second  Battle  of  Bull  Run,  August  30,  1862).  Things  looked 
darker  than  ever.  Finally,  came  the  week  of  the  battle  of  Antietam. 
I  determined  to  wait  no  longer.  The  news  came,  I  think,  on  Wed- 
nesday, that  the  advantage  was  on  our  side.  I  was  then  staying 
at  the  Soldiers'  Home.  Here  I  finished  writing  the  second  draft 
of  the  preliminary  proclamation ;  came  up  on  Saturday ;  called  the 
Cabinet  together  to  hear  it,  and  it  was  published  the  following 
Monday." 

At  the  final  meeting  of  September  20th  another  interesting 
incident  occurred  in  connection  with  Secretary  Seward.  The  Presi- 
dent had  written  the  important  part  of  the  proclamation  in  these 
words : 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  4S1 

"  That,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as  slaves 
within  any  State  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof 
shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then, 
thenceforward,  and  forever  free  ;  and  the  Executive  Government 
of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority 
thereof,  will  recognize  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do 
no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any 
efiforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom.  " 

"When  I  finished  reading  this  paragraph, "  resumed  Mr. 
Lincoln,  "  Mr.  Seward  stopped  me  and  said,  'I  think,  Mr.  President, 
that  you  should  insert  after  the  word  'recognize, '  in  that  sentence, 
the  words  "and  maintain.'  I  replied  that  I  had  already  fully 
considered  the  import  of  that  expression,  in  this  connection, 
but  I  had  not  introduced  it,  because  it  was  not  my  way  to  promise 
what  I  was  not  entirely  sure  that  I  could  perform,  and  I  was  not 
prepared  to  say  that  I  thought  we  were  exactly  able  to  maintain 
this." 

"But,  "  said  he,  "Seward  insisted  that  we  ought  to  take  this 
ground ;  and  the  words  finally  w^ent  in ! " 

"  It  is  a  somewhat  remarkable  fact,  "  he  subsequently  remarked, 
"that  there  were  just  one  hundred  days  between  the  dates  of  the 
two  proclamations  issued  upon  the  22nd  of  September  and  the  ist 
of  January.     I  had  not  made  the  calculation  at  the  time.  " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  20. 

Stanton's  Story  of  the  First  Reading  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 

to  the  Cabinet 

"I  was  more  discouraged  after  Antietam  than  at  any  other 
period,  and  the  future  seemed  more  obscure  to  me  then  than  at  any 
previous  time.  But  I  kept  on  my  daily  work,  and  on  the  22  nd  of 
September,  1862,  I  had  a  sudden  and  peremptory  call  to  a 
Cabinet  meeting  at  the  White  House.  They  did  not  usually 
require  me  to  attend  those  meetings,  as  my  duties  were  so 
exacting. 

"I  had  to  be  constantly  at  my  post,  and  it  was  only  on  rare  and 
important  occasions  that  I  was  called  to  such  meetings.  I  went 
immediately  to  the  White  House,  entered  the  room  and  found  the 
historic  War  Cabinet  of  Abraham  Lincoln  assembled,  every  member 

31 


482  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

being  present.  The  President  hardly  noticed  me  as  I  came  in. 
He  was  reading  a  book  of  some  kind,  which  seemed  to  amuse  him. 
It  was  a  Httle  book.     He  finally  turned  to  us  and  said : 

" '  Gentlemen,  did  you  ever  read  anything  from  Artemus  Ward  ? 
Let  me  read  you  a  chapter  that  is  very  funny.' 

"Not  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  smiled;  as  for  myself  I  was 
angry,  and  looked  to  see  what  the  President  meant. 

"It  seemed  to  me  like  buffoonery.  He,  however,  concluded  to 
read  us  a  chapter  from  Artemus  Ward,  which  he  did  with  great 
deliberation.  Having  finished,  he  laughed  heartily  without  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet  joining  in  the  laughter. 

"'Well,'  he  said,  'let's  have  another  chapter,'  and  he  read 
another  chapter,  to  our  great  astonishment. 

' '  I  was  considering  whether  I  should  rise  and  leave  the  meeting 
abruptly,  when  he  threw  his  book  down,  heaved  a  long  sigh,  and 
said: 

'"Gentlemen,  why  don't  you  laugh?  With  the  fearful  strain 
that  is  upon  me  night  and  day,  if  I  did  not  laugh  I  should  die,  and 
you  need  this  medicine  as  much  as  I  do. ' 

"  He  then  put  his  hand  in  his  tall  hat  that  sat  upon  the  table, 
and  pulled  out  a  little  paper.  Turning  to  the  members  of  the 
Cabinet,  he  said : 

"Gentlemen,  I  have  called  you  here  upon  very  important 
business.  I  have  prepared  a  little  paper  of  much  significance. 
I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  this  paper  is  to  issue ;  that  the  time 
is  come  when  it  should  issue;  that  the  people  are  ready  for  it  to 
issue.  It  is  due  to  my  Cabinet  that  you  should  be  the  first  to  hear 
and  know  of  it,  and  if  any  of  you  have  any  suggestions  to  make  as 
to  the  form  of  this  paper  or  its  composition,  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear 
them.     But  the  paper  is  to  issue.' 

"And  to  my  astonishment, "  said  the  Secretary,  "he  read  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  of  that  date,  which  was  to  take  effect 
the  first  of  January  following,  containing  the  vital  provision  that 
on  January  i,  1863,  all  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or 
designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then  henceforward  and  forever 
free." 

And  the  Secretary,  turning  to  me,  smiled  and  said :  "  I  have 
always  tried  to  be  calm,  but  I  think  I  lost  my  calmness  for  a  moment, 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  483 

and  with  great  enthusiasm  I  arose,  approached  the  President, 
extended  my  hand  and  said: 

"  'Mr.  President,  if  the  reading  of  chapters  of  Artemus  Ward  is 
a  prelude  to  such  a  deed  as  this,  the  book  should  be  filed  among  the 
archives  of  the  nation,  and  the  author  should  be  canonized.  Hence- 
forth I  see  the  light  and  the  country  is  saved. '     And' all  said  '  Amen. ' 

"And  Lincoln  said  to  me  in  a  droll  way,  just  as  I  was  leaving, 
'Stanton,  it  would  have  been  too  early  last  spring.' 

"  And  as  I  look  back  upon  it  I  think  the  President  was  right. " 

Interview  with  Judge  Hamilton  Ward,  in  Lockport  Journal,  May  21,  1893. 

"  I  See  No  Reason  Whatever !  " 

The  favorite  poem  of  the  President  was,  as  is  well  known, 
"  Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  he  proud?"  A  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Ohio  came  into  his  presence  in  a  state  of  unutterable 
intoxication,  and  sinking  into  a  chair,  exclaimed  in  tones  that  welled 
up  fuzzy  through  a  gallon  or  more  of  whiskey  that  he  contained, 
"  Oh,  why  should  (hie)  er  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? " 

"My  dear  sir,"  said  the  President,  regarding  him  closely,  "J 
see  no  reason  whatever!" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby").     Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  451. 

"  Accuse  Not  a  Servant  unto  His  Master  " 

To  a  man  who  came  to  him  complaining  of  his  superior  officer, 
hoping  to  benefit  by  the  discharge  of  that  official,  Lincoln  said, 
shortly : 

"  Go  home  and  read  Proverbs  xxx,  lo.  " 

The  man  went  and  looked  up  the  reference,  finding  these  words  : 

"Accuse  not  a  servant  unto  his  master,  lest  he  curse  thee,  and 
,thou  be  found  guilty. ' ' 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  loi. 

The  Sleeping  Sentinel 

The  incidents  here  woven  into  verse  relate  to  William  Scott,  a 
young  soldier  from  the  State  of  Vermont,  who,  while  on  duty  as  a 
sentinel  at  night,  fell  asleep,  and,  having  been  condemned  to  die, 
was  pardoned  by  the  President : 


484  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Within  a  prison's  dismal  walls,  where  shadows  veiled  decay — 
In  fetters,  on  a  heap  of  straw,  a  youthful  soldier  lay ; 
Heart-broken,  hopeless,  and  forlorn,  with  short  and  feverish  breath, 
He  waited  but  the  appointed  hour  to  die  a  culprit's  death. 

'Twas  night. — In  a  secluded  room,  with  measured  tread,  and  slow, 
A  statesman  of  commanding  mien  paced  gravely  to  and  fro. 
Oppressed,  he  pondered  on  a  land  by  civil  discord  rent; 
On  brothers  armed  in  deadly  strife — it  was  the  President. 

The  woes  of  thirty  millions  filled  his  burdened  heart  with  grief ; 
Embattled  hosts,  on  land  and  sea,  acknowledged  him  their  chief; 
And  yet,  amid  the  din  of  war,  he  heard  the  plaintive  cry 
Of  that  poor  soldier,  as  he  lay  in  prison  doomed  to  die. 

'Twas  morning.     On  a  tented  field,  and  through  the  heated  haze. 
Flashed  back,  from  lines  of  burnished  arms,  the  sun's  effulgent  blaze; 
While  from  a  somber  prison-house,  seen  slowly  to  emerge, 
A  sad  procession  o'er  the  sward  moved  to  a  muffled  dirge. 

And  in  the  midst  with  faltering  step,  and  pale  and  anxious  face, 

In  manacles,  between  two  guards,  a  soldier  had  his  place ; 

A  youth,  led  out  to  die, — it  was  not  death  but  shame 

That  smote  his  gallant  heart  with  dread,  and  shook  his  manly  frame-. 

Still  on,  before  the  marshall'd  ranks,  the  train  pursued  its  way 
Up  to  the  designated  spot,  whereon  a  coffln  lay — 
His  coffin!     And  with  reeling  brain,  despairing,  desolate. 
He  took  his  station  by  its  side,  abandoned  to  his  fate. 

Yet  once  again.     In  double  file  advancing  then,  he  saw 
Twelve  comrades,  sternly  set  apart  to  execute  the  law — 
But  saw  no  more;  his  senses  swam,  deep  darkness  settled  round, 
And,  shuddering,  he  awaited  now^  the  fatal  volley's  sound. 

Then  suddenlv  was  heard  the  noise  of  steeds'  and  wheels'  approach, 
And,  rolling  through  a  cloud  of  dust,  appeared  a  stately  coach. 
On,  past  the  guards,  and  through  the  field,  its  rapid  course  was  bent, 
Till,  halting,  'mid  the  lines  was  seen  the  nation's  President ! 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  485 

■* 

He  came  to  save  that  stricken  soul,  now  waking  from  despair ; 

And  from  a  thousand  voices  rose  a  shout  that  rent  the  air ; 

The  pardoned  soldier  understood  the  tones  of  jubilee, 

And,  bounding  from  his  fetters,  blessed  the  hand  that  made  him  free. 


The  Sleeping  Sentinel,  Francis  DeHaes  Janvier,  The  Speaker's  Garland,  Vol.  I,  page  13. 

"Why  Don't  You  Go  at  Him   with  a   'Capias'   or   a   'Surrebutter  ?" 

General  (afterward  President)  Garfield,  of  Ohio,  received  from 
the  President  the  account  of  the  capture  of  Norfok,  with  the  follow- 
ing preface: 

"By  the  way,  Garfield,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "you  never  heard, 
did  you,  that  Chase,  Stanton  and  I  had  a  campaign  of  our  own? 
We  went  down  to  Fortress  Monroe  in  Chase's  revenue  cutter  and 
consulted  with  Admiral  Goldsborough  as  to  the  feasibility  of  taking 
Norfolk  by  landing  on  the  north  shore  and  making  a  march  of  eight 
miles.  The  Admiral  said,  very  positively,  there  was  no  landing 
on  that  shore,  and  we  should  have  to  double  the  cape  and  approach 
the  place  from  the  south  side,  which  would  be  a  long  and  difficult 
journey.  I  thereupon  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  tried  to  find  a  land- 
ing and  he  replied  that  he  had  not. 

"  Now,"  said  I,  "Admiral,  that  reminds  me  of  a  chap  out  West 
who  had  studied  law  but  had  never  tried  a  case.  Being  sued,  and 
not  having  confidence  in  his  ability  to  manage  his  own  case,  he 
employed  a  fellow-lawyer  to  manage  it  for  him.  He  had  only  a 
confused  idea  of  the  meaning  of  law  terms,  but  was  anxious  to  make 
a  display  of  learning,  and  in  the  trial  constantly  made  suggestions  to 
his  lawyer,  who  paid  no  attention  to  him.  At  last,  fearing  that  his 
lawyer  was  not  handling  the  opposing  counsel  very  well,  he  lost  all 
patience  and,  springing  to  his  feet,  cried  out : 

"  'Why  don't  you  go  at  him  with  a  capias,  or  a  surrebutter  or 
something,  and  not  stand  there  like  a  confounded  old  nudum- 
pact  urn  f  " 

Anecdotes  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Lincoln's  Stories,  Edited  by  J.  B.  McClure,  page  58. 

"  No  Respecter  of  Persons  " 

Senator  J.  F.  Wilson,  in  pleading  the  cause  of  a  soldier  wrong- 
fully accused  of  desertion,  and  finding  the  Secretary  of  War  inex- 
orable, "appealed  to  Caesar,"  and  procured   an  overriding  order 


486  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

from  the  President  which  Stanton  finally  obeyed.     On  reporting 
the  result  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  the  latter  said : 

"Well,  I  am  glad  you  stuck  to  it,  and  that  it  ended  as  it  did; 
for  I  meant  it  should  so  end,  though  I  had  to  give  it  personal 
attention.  A  private  soldier  has  as  much  right  to  justice  as  a 
Major-General. ' ' 

Lincolnics ,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  140.  • 

A  Suitable  Inscription  for  Greenbacks 

At  a  Cabinet  meeting  once  the  advisability  of  putting  on  green- 
backs a  legend  similar  to  the  "  In  God  We  Trust "  on  the  silver  coins 
was  discussed,  and  the  President  was  asked  what  his  view  was.  He 
replied : 

"If  you  are  going  to  put  a  legend  on  the  greenback,  I  would 
suggest  that  of  Peter  and  John :  '  Silver  and  gold  have  I  none,  but 
such  as  I  have  give  I  thee.'  "     [Acts  iii,  6.] 

"Abe''  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  400. 

Informed  of  the  Defeat  at  Fredericksburg 

I  made  all  speed  to  the  Tribune  office,  where  I  was  told  there 
would  be  no  use  in  trying  to  send  my  report  by  telegraph,  as  the 
Government  censor  at  the  main  telegraph  office  had  been  ordered  by 
the  Secretary  of  War  not  to  allow  any  news  from  Fredericksburg  to 
be  transmitted  without  previous  submission  to  and  special  approval 
by  him.  But  there  was  time  to  send  it  by  special  messenger  on  the 
night  train,  which  was  done.  It  may  as  well  be  mentioned  here  that 
my  account  met  the  same  fate  as  that  of  the  first  battle  of  Bull  Run. 
I  had  stated  in  it  as  strongly  as  possible  that  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  had  suffered  another  great,  general  defeat ;  that  an  inex- 
cusable, murderous  blunder  had  been  made  in  attempting  to  over- 
come the  enemy  by  direct  attack;  and  that  the  Union  cause  was 
threatened  by  the  greatest  disaster  yet  suffered,  in  consequence  of 
the  perilous  situation  in  which  the  defeat  left  the  army.  The  editor 
was  afraid  to  let  the  Tribune  solely  assume  the  whole  responsibility 
for  what  would  no  doubt  prove  a  great  shock  to  the  loyal  public, 
lest  I  might  be  mistaken  in  my  opinion,  and,  accordingly  the  report 
was  very  much  modified,  but  was  printed  as  an  extra  issue  the  fol- 
lowing morning. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION 


487 


My  duty  being  thus  fully  discharged,  I  went  to  Willard's  Hotel 
for  my  supper.  At  the  entrance  I  met  Senator  Henry  Wilson  of 
Massachusetts.  He  .  .  .  surmised  that  I  was  from  the  front,  and 
greeted  me  with  the  questions : 

"  Have  you  come  from  the  army?  What  is  the  news?  Have 
we  won  the  fight? " 

I  answered:  "Senator,  you  know  whatever  news  I  have  be- 
longs to  my  paper,  but,  for  the  sake  of  the  cause,  I  will  tell  you  in 


BEFORE  FREDERICKSBURG 


strict  confidence  that  Burnside  is  defeated,  and  in  such  a  bad  plight 
that  I  think  you  can  render  no  greater  service  to  the  country  than 

to  go  at  once  to  the  White  House  and  tell  the  President 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  to  him,  through  you,  that,  in  my  deliberate 
judgment,  he  ought  not  to  wait  for  information,  but  instantly  order 
the  army  back  to  the  north  bank  "  [of  the  Rappahannock].      .    . 


488  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


After  supper  I  went  back  to  the  Tribune  office,  but  had  hardly 
entered  it  when  the  Senator  reappeared,  and,  taking  me  aside,  told 
me  that  he  had  seen  the  President,  who  desired  me  to  come  with  him 

to  the  White  House  at  once The  Senator  informed  me 

on  the  way  that  he  had  not  given  my  message  to  the  President. 

We  found  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  old  reception-room  on  the  second 
floor,  opposite  the  landing.  He  greeted  me  with  a  hearty  hand- 
shake, saying,  "  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  coming,  for  we  are 
very  anxious  and  have  heard  very  little."  He  then  asked  me  to 
give  him,  as  far  as  my  personal  knowledge  permitted,  a  general 
outline  of  what  had  happened,  which  I  did  as  fully  as  I  could  in  a 
few  minutes.     He  followed  up  my  accoimt  with  one  question  after 

another  for  over  half  an  hour He  was  very  careful  not 

to  ask  anything  so  as  to  imply  criticism  of  anybody,  although  I 
ventured  to  mingle  a  good  deal  of  censure  ^\'ith  my  statements  of 
facts.  But  his  questions  and  the  expression  of  his  face  showed  that 
he  believed  I  was  aiming  to  tell  the  truth,  and  that  he  felt  growing 
anxiety.  When  he  ended  the  interview  by  repeating  his  thanks, 
I  made  bold  to  say  as  earnestly  as  I  could:  "Mr.  President,  it  is, 
of  course,  not  for  me  to  offer  advice  to  you,  but  I  hope  my  sincere 
loyalty  may  be  accepted  as  my  excuse  for  taking  the  liberty  of  telling 
you  what  is  not  only  my  conviction  but  that  of  every  general  officer 
I  saw  during  and  after  the  fighting,  that  success  is  impossible  and 
that  the  worst  disaster  yet  suffered  by  our  forces  will  befall  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  if  the  attack  is  renewed,  and  unless  the  army 
is  withdrawn  at  once  to  the  north  side."  ....  The  President 
took  no  offense,  but,  with  a  melancholy  smile,  remarked, 

"  I  hope  it  is  not  so  bad  as  all  that,  "whereupon  we  took  our  leave. 

Memoirs  of  Henry  Villard,  Vol.  I,  page  388. 

Suspension  of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus 

In  order  to  prevent  in  some  degree  the  mischief  which  Rebel 
sympathizers  were  doing  by  giving  the  enemy  aid  and  comfort  the 
President  was  obliged  to  resort  to  a  measure  which  created  great 
excitement  among  his  enemies,  as  well  as  among  some  of  his  friends. 
This  measure  was  called  "the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus. " 

Habeas  and  corpus  are  two  Latin  words  meaning  "  you  may  have 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  489 

the  body ; ' '  and  the  intention  of  the  writ  is  to  deUver  a  person  who 
has  been  falsely  imprisoned.  Thus,  when  any  one  thinks  he  has 
been  imprisoned  from  some  unjust  cause  or  upon  false  accusation, 
he  appeals  to  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  This  writ  commands  the 
sheriff,  or  any  one  else  to  whom  it  may  be  directed,  to  have  the  body 
of  the  person  who  has  been  deprived  of  his  liberty  immediately 
before  some  competent  tribunal.  The  person  who  restrained  the 
said  prisoner  must  also  be  present,  and  he  must  also  bring  with  him 
the  cause  of  the  restraint,  that  all  parties  may  be  then  and  there 
lawfully  judged. 

This  Act  was  originally  passed  in  England  to  prevent  the  king 
from  becoming  a  despot,  and  unlawfully  imprisoning  his  subjects; 
and  it  was  regarded  so  valuable  by  those  persons  who  made  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  that  they  said  it  should  never  be 
suspended,  "  unless  when,  in  case  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public 
safety  may  require  it.  " 

Mr.  Lincoln  thought  the  time  had  come  when  the  public  safety 
did  require  it,  and  he  thought  the  Constitution  gave  him  a  right  to 
suspend  it ;  accordingly  he  suspended  it  whenever  he  thought  proper. 
Many  persons  called  him  a  despot,  and  said  we  should  yet  lose  all 
our  freedom,  and  the  days  of  terror  would  come  here,  as  they  came 
in  France  in  the  time  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Let  us  see  now  who  the  persons  were  that  Mr.  Lincoln  deprived 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  In  the  early  part  of  May  (1861)  the 
President,  -who  knew  that  the  small  portion  of  Florida  which  we 
still  held  in  our  possession  was  infested  with  traitors,  directed  the 
commander  of  our  forces  in  that  region  to  remove  everybody  from 
the  United  States  forts  that  he  suspected  or  considered  dangerous, 
and  to  allow  nobody  to  exercise  any  authority  which  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  authority  of  the  United  States ;  he  also  authorized 
him  to  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  if  he  should  find  it  neces- 
sary. That  is,  if  the  commander  thought  the  public  safety  required 
that  a  man  should  be  imprisoned,  he  could  not  be  released  until 
President  Lincoln  himself  thought  proper  to  give  him  up.  Mr. 
Lincoln  said : 

"You  may  not  'have  the  body,'  until  I  think  proper  to  deliver 
up  the  man. " 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  i6i. 


490  THE  STORY-LIF^  OF  LINCOLN 

"Come  Down  and  Help  Me  Let  This  Hog  Go!" 

The  wholesale  butchery  at  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg  made 
Mr.  Lincoln  almost  broken-hearted.  Governor  Curtin  of  Pennsyl- 
vania expressed  regrets  that  his  description  of  that  battle  had 
affected  him  so  sadly.     He  remarked : 

"  I  would  give  all  I  possess  to  know  how  to  rescue  you  from  this 
terrible  War." 

Then  Mr.  Lincoln's  wonderful  recuperative  powers  began  to 
assert  themselves,  and  the  marvelous  man  was  "himself  again." 
His  whole  aspect  suddenly  changed,  and  he  relieved  his  mind  by 
telling  a  story. 

"This  reminds  me,  Governor,"  he  said,  "of  an  old  farmer  I 
used  to  know,  out  in  Illinois.  He  took  it  into  his  head  to  go  into 
hog-raising,  so  he  sent  out  to  Europe  and  imported  the  finest  breed 
of  hogs  that  he  could  buy. 

"The  prize  hog  was  put  in  a  pen  and  the  farmer's  two  mis- 
chievous boys,  James  and  John,  were  told  to  be  sure  not  to  let  it  out. 
But  James  let  the  brute  out  the  very  next  day.  The  hog  went 
straight  for  the  boys  and  drove  John  up  a  tree.  Then  it  went  for 
the  seat  of  James's  trousers,  and  the  only  way  the  boy  could  save 
himself  was  by  holding  on  to  the  porker's  tail. 

"The  hog  would  not  give  up  his  hunt,  nor  the  boy  his  hold! 
After  they  had  made  a  good  many  circles  around  the  tree  the  boy's 
courage  began  to  give  out,  and  he  shouted  to  his  brother : 

"  'I  say  John,  come  down  quick  and  help  me  let  go  this  hog!' 

"  Now,  Governor,  that  is  exactly  my  fix.  I  wish  some  one 
would  come  and  help  me  let  the  old  hog  go.  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  196. 

The  Signing  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 

The  roll  containing  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  taken 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  at  noon  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1863,  by  Secre- 
tary Seward  and  his  son  Frederick.  As  it  lay  unrolled  before  him, 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  a  pen,  dipped  it  in  the  ink,  moved  his  hand  to  the 
plrce  for  the  signature,  held  it  a  moment,  then  removed  his  hand 
and  dropped  the  pen.     After  a  little  hesitation  he  again  took  up  the 


THE  EMANCIPATION  PROCLAMATION  491 

pen  and  went  through  the  same  movement  as  before.     Mr.  Lincoln 
then  turned  to  Mr.  Seward  and  said : 

"  I  have  been  shaking  hands  since  nine  o'clock  this  morning, 
and  my  right  arm  is  almost  paralyzed.  If  my  name  ever  goes  into 
history  it  will  be  for  this  act,  and  my  whole  soul  is  in  it.  If  my  hand 
trembles  when  I  sign  the  Proclamation,  all  who  examine  the  docu- 
ment hereafter  will  say,  *  He  hesitated.' " 

He  then  turned  to  the  table,  took  up  the  pen  again,  and  slowly, 
firmly,  wrote  Abraham  Lincoln,  with  which  the  whole  world  is  now 
familiar.     He  then  looked  up,  smiled,  and  said : 

"That  will  do!" 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  i88. 

Emancipation  "Very  Like  a  Whale" 

At  last  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  a  fact.  But  there 
was  little  rejoicing  in  the  heart  of  the  man. who  had  framed  and 
given  it  to  the  world.  In  issuing  it,  all  he  had  dared  hope  was  that 
in  the  long  run  it  would  give  greater  gain  than  loss.  He  v/as  not 
confident  that  this  would  be  so,  but  he  was  willing  to  risk  it. 

"  Hope  and  fear  and  doubt  contended  over  the  new  policy  in 

uncertain   conflict,"   he  said 

months  later.  As  he  had 
foreseen,  dark  days  followed. 
There  were  mutinies  in  the 
army;  there  was  ridicule; 
there  was  a  long  interval  of 
waiting  for  results.  Nothing 
but  the  greatest  care  in  en- 
forcing the  Proclamation 
could  make  it  a  greater  good 
than  evil,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
now  turned  all  his  energies 
to  this  new  task. 

"We  are  like  whalers," 
he  said  one  day,  "  who  have  been  long  on  a  chase ;  we  have  at  last 
got  the  harpoon  into  the  monster,  but  we  must  now  look  how  we 
steer,    or   with   one    'flop'    of   his   tail   he  will  send  us  all  mto 
eternity. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell.  Vol.  H,  page  126. 


LEADIKG  EVENTS  IN  1862 

Union  victory  at  Fort  Henry,  Tenn Feb.    6 

Grant  takes  Fort  Donelson,  Tenn Feb.  16 

The  "Monitor"  defeats  the  "Merrimac". .  Mar.  9 
Grant's    victory    at     Shiloh,    (Pittsburg 

Landing)  Tenn Apr.  6  and  7 

Farragut  takes  New  Orleans Apr.  25 

Union  forces    driven   from  Shenandoah 

Valley     J"*^^ 

"The  Seven   Days'   Battles,"   near  Rich- 
mond, Va June  25  to  July  i 

The  President   calls  for  300,000  men  to 

serve  three  years J^^'y  ^ 

The  President  calls  for  300,000  more  men 

for  nine  months'  special  service Aug.  4 

Pope's  campaign  and  defeat  in  Virginia  August 
Second  Battle  of  Bull  Run  (Union  defeat)  Aug.  30 
Confederates  capture  Harper's  Ferry..  .  .   Sept.  15 

Union  victory  at  Antietam Sept.  17 

Confederate  victory    at    Fredericksburg    Dec.  13 


492  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

The  Emancipation  Group 

Amidst  thy  sacred  effigies 

Of  old  renown  give  place, 
O  city,  Freedom-loved !  to  his 

Whose  hand  unchained  a  race. 

Take  the  worn  frame,  that  rested  not 

Save  in  a  martyr's  grave ; 
The  care-lined  face,  that  time  forgot. 

Bent  to  the  kneeling  slave. 

Let  man  be  free !  The  mighty  word 

He  spake  was  not  his  own ; 
An  impulse  from  the  Highest  stirred 

These  chiseled  lips  alone. 

The  cloudy  sign,  the  fiery  guide, 

Along  his  pathway  ran. 
And  Nature,  through  his  voice,  denied 

The  ownership  of  mah 

We  rest  in  peace  where  these  sad  eyes 

Saw  peril,  strife  and  pain; 
His  was  the  nation's  sacrifice. 

And  ours  the  priceless  gain. 

O  symbol  of  God's  will  on  earth 

As  it  is  done  above ! 
Bear  witness  to  the  cost  and  worth 

Of  justice  and  of  love. 

Stand  in  thy  place  and  testify 

To  coming  ages  long 
That  truth  is  stronger  than  a  He 

And  righteousness  than  wrong. 

Lines  for  the  Unveiling  of  the  Emancipation  Statue  in  Boston,  1879,  John  G.  Whittier.    Complete 
Poetical  Works,  page  429. 


STATUE  Of  EMANCIPATION,  FLORENCE,  ITALY 


(493) 


CHAPTER  XIX 

"The  Burden  and  Heat  op  the  Day" 

He  Was  Beset  by  Night  and  by  Day 

Week  after  week  and  month  after  month,  the  President  faced 
the  future,  never  betraying  a  fear  that  the  Union  \vould  not  triumph 
in  the  end,  but  grieved  sorely  at  the  long  delay.  Many  who  were 
not  so  sure  came  to  him  with  their  troubles.  He  was  beset  by 
night  and  by  day  by  people  who  had  advice  to  give  or  complaints 
to  make.  They  besought  him  to  dismiss  this  or  that  General,  to 
order  such  and  such  a  military  movement ;  to  do  a  hundred  things 
that  he,  in  his  great  wisdom,  felt  were  not  right,  or  for  which  the 
time  had  not  yet  come. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  183.- 

Fredericksburg  and  Antietam  Compared 

On  the  3d  of  January,  1863,  Harper's  Weekly  appeared  with  a 
cartoon  representing  Columbia  indignantly  demanding  of  President 
Lincoln  and  Secretary  of  War  Stanton  that  they  restore  her  sons 
killed  in  that  battle.     Below  the  picture  is  the  reading  matter: 

"Columbia:  Where  are  my  15,000  sons — murdered  at  Fred- 
ericksburg?" 

The  battle  of  Fredericksburg  was  fought  on  December  13th, 
1862,  between  General  Burnside,  commanding  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  General  Lee's  force.  The  Union  troops,  time  and 
again,  assaulted  the  heights  where  the  Confederates  had  taken 
position,  but  were  driven  back  with  frightful  losses.  The  enemy, 
being  behind  breastworks,  suffered  comparatively  little.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fight  the  Confederate  line  was  broken,  bilt  the 
result  of  the  engagement  was  disastrous  to  the  Union  cause.  Bum- 
side  had  1,152  killed,  9,101  wounded,  and  3,234  missing,  a  total  of 
13,487.  General  Lee's  losses,  all  told,  were  not  much  more  than 
5,000  men. 

Burnside  had  succeeded  McClellan   in  command  of  the  Army 

(494) 


THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY'' 


495 


of  the  Potomac,  mainly,  it  was  said,  through  the  influence  of 
Secretary  of  War  Stanton.  Three  months  before,  McClellan  had 
defeated  Lee  at  Antietam,  the  bloodiest  battle  of  the  war,  Lee's 
losses  footing  up  more  than  13,000  men.  At  Fredericksburg,  Burn- 
side  had  about  120,000  men;  at  Antietam,  McClellan  had  about 
80,000.  It  had  been  maintained  that  Burnside  should  not  have 
fought  this  battle. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  MeClure,  page  311. 

"  I  Must  Bear  This  Load  and  Do  My  Best " 

How  wof ully  the  friends  had  exaggerated  the  power  of  such  a 
proclamation  as  they  prayed  the  President  to  issue,  is  well  shown  in 
the  reminiscences  of  Moncure  D.  Conway,  published  on  August 
30th,  in  which  he  tells  of  the  interview  between  the  President, 
Senator  Williams,  Wendell  Phillips,  himself  (Conway)  and  others, 
which  occurred  on  the  24th  of 
January,  1863. 

The  object  of  this  delegation 
was  to  complain  of  the  failure  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
and  Mr.  Phillips,  as  its  spokesman, 
hinted  that  "the  Northern  people, 
now  generally  antislavery,  were 
not  satisfied  that  it  was  being  hon- 
estly carried  out  by  the  nation's 
agents  and  generals  in  the  South.  " 
The  President  said  he  "had  not 
expected  much  from  it  at  first, 
and,  consequently,  had  not  been 
disappointed,"  and  gave  it  as  his 
impression  that  "the  masses  of 
the  country  generally  are  only 
dissatisfied  at  our  lack  of  military 

successes. "  He  did  not  hesitate  in  the  course  of  the  interview  with 
these  distinguished  men  to  say  that  "most  of  us  here  present  have 
been  nearly  all  our  lives  working  in  minorities  and  many  have  got 
into  a  habit  of  being  dissatisfied;"  and  when  this  conclusion  was 
deprecated,  he  added :  "  At  any  rate,  it  has  been  very  rare  that  an 
Opportunity  of  running  this  Administration  has  been  lost."     And 


: 

i 

/  ^^^^^Bk 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS 


496  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


when  Mr.  Phillips  patronizingly  said :  "  If  we  see  this  Administration 
earnestly  working  to  free  the  country  from  slavery  and  its  rebellion, 
w^e  will  show  you  how  we  can  run  it  in  another  four  years  of  power,  " 
to  which,  possibly  remembering  Mr.  Phillips's  description  of  him  as 
a  mosaic,  and  a  "  man  who  had  never  walked  a  straight  line  in 
his  life,"  Mr.  Lincoln  said: 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Phillips,  I  have  ceased  to  have  any  personal  feelings 
or  expectation  in  that  matter — I  don't  say  I  never  had  any — so 
abused  and  home  upon  as  I  have  been;''  and  Mr.  Conway  tells  us 
that  his  last  utterance  to  the  delegation  as  it  left  him  was : 

"  I  must  bear  this  load  which  the  coimtry  has  entrusted  to  me 
as  well  as  I  can,  and  do  my  best.  " 

Lincoln  and  Stanton,  William  D.  Kelley,  M.C.,  Appendix,  page  87. 

"How  Willingly  Would  I  Exchange  Places  with  the  Soldier!" 

No  one  except  those  who  saw  him  daily  at  that  time  can  realize 

how  the  nation's  woes  and  trials  bore   upon  him One 

morning,  calling  upon  him  at  an  early  hour  on  business,  I  found  him 
so  pale  and  careworn  that  I  inquired  the  cause.  He  replied,  telling 
me  of  bad  news  received  at  a  late  hour  of  the  night,  and  not  yet 
printed,  adding  that  he  had  not  closed  his  eyes  nor  breakfasted ;  and 
then  he  said,  with  an  anguished  expression  which  I  shall  never 
forget : 

"How  willingly  would  I  exchange  places  to-day  with  the 
soldier  who  sleeps  on  the  ground  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac!" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  336. 

"Something  That  Everybody  Can  Take" 

The  President  was  feeling  indisposed,  and  had  sent  for  his 
physician,  who  soon  informed  him  that  his  trouble  was  varioloid, 
or  a  mild  form  of  smallpox. 

"They're  all   over  me.     Is  it  contagious?"   asked  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  doctor,  "very,  indeed." 

"Oh!"  said  a  visitor  who  had  called  to  see  the  President,  "I 
can't  stop. " 

"  Don't  be  in  a  hurry,  sir,  "  said  the  President,  placidly. 

"Thank  you,  sir — I'll  call  again!"  the  visitor  called  back  as  he 
left  abruptly. 

"  Some  people, "  exclaimed  the  Executive,  smiling  as  he  looked 


''THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY"  497 

after  the  retreating  caller,  "  some  people  do  not  take  very  well  to 
my  Proclamation,  but  now,  I  am  happy  to  say,  I  have  something 
that  everybody  can  take.  " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  isi. 

"  In  the  Silent  Midnight  Watches  " 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  guard  to  stand  watch  throughout  the 
night.  He  said  that  the  President  always  spoke  kindly  to  him  on 
going  to  his  little  bedroom  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  second 
story  of  the  White  House. 

"When  awakened — sometimes  we  had  to  rouse  him  after  he 
had  fallen  into  a  deep  sleep — he  never  betrayed  the  least  annoyance 
and  always  treated  the  messenger  most  kindly.  This  is  surely  a 
searching  test  of  one's  temper. 

"Often  after  a  day  of  great  suspense  the  President  used  to 
moan  in  his  sleep.  During  the  day  he  bore  up  and  did  all  he  could 
to  hearten  and  comfort  others,  but  at  night,  while  off  his  guard,  in 
sleep  he  seemed  to  betray  his  real  sentiments  and  it  was  frightful  to 
hear  him  then.  It  made  me  feel  as  though  I  were  listening  at  the 
key-hole  to  state  secrets,  or,  at  least,  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of 
the  Great-heart  of  the  White  House." 

Wntten  from  memory  of  a  narrative  by  a  member  of  Lincoln's  Life-Guard. 

"  Lincoln  Gave  Me  the  "Worst  Fright  of  My  Life ! " 

Lincoln  visited  my  Department  twice  while  I  was  in  command. 
He  was  personally  a  very  brave  man,  and  gave  me  the  worst  fright 
of  my  life.     He  came  to  my  headquarters  and  said : 

"  General,  I  should  like  to  ride  along  your  lines  and  see  them, 
and  see  the  boys  and  how  they  are  situated  in  camp.  " 

I  said,  "Very  well,  we  will  go  after  breakfast." 

I  happened  to  have  a  very  tall,  easy-riding,  pacing  horse,  and  as 
the  President  was  rather  long-legged,  I  tendered  him  the  use  of 
him  while  I  rode  beside  him  on  a  pony.  He  was  dressed,  as  was  his 
custom,  in  a  black  suit,  a  swallow-tail  coat,  and  tall  silk  hat.  As 
there  rode  on  the  other  side  of  him  at  first  Mr.  Fox,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  w^ho  was  not  more  than  five  feet  six  inches  in  height,  the 
President  stood  out  as  the  central  figure  of  the  group.  Of  course, 
the  staff  ofificers  and  orderly  were  behind. 


3t 


498  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

When  W3  got  to  the  hne  of  entrenchment,  from  which  the  Une 
of  Rebel  pickets  was  not  more  than  300  yards,  he  towered  high  above 
the  works,  and  as  we  came  to  the  several  encampments  the  boys 
all  turned  out  and  cheered  him  lustily.  Of  course,  the  enemy's 
attention  was  wholly  directed  to  this  performance,  and  with  the 
glass  it  could  be  plainly  seen  that  the  eyes  of  their  ofBcers  were 
fastened  upon  Lincoln ;  and  a  personage  riding  down  the  lines  cheered 
by  the  soldiers  was  a  very  unusual  thing,  so  the  enemy  must  have 
known  that  he  was  there. 

Both  Mr.  Fox  and  myself  said  to  him : 

"  Let  us  ride  on  the  side  next  to  the  enemy,  Mr.  President. 
You  are  in  fair  rifle-shot  of  them  and  they  may  open  fire ;  and  they 
must  know  you,  being  the  only  person  not  in  uniform,  and  the  cheer- 
ing of  the  troops  directs  their  attention  to  you. " 

"Oh,  no,"  he  said,  laughing,  "the  Commander-in-chief  of  the 
army  must  not  show  any  cowardice  in  the  presence  of  his  soldiers, 
whatever  he  may  feel.  " 

And  he  insisted  on  riding  the  whole  six  miles,  which  was  about 
the  length  of  my  entrenchments,  in  that  position,  amusing  himself 
at  intervals,  where  there  was  nothing  more  attractive,  in  a  sort  of 
competitive  examination  of  the  commanding  General  in  the  science 
of  Engineering,  much  to  the  amusement  of  my  engineer-in-chief. 
General  Weitzel,  who  rode  on  my  left,  and  who  was  kindly  disposed 
to  prompt  me  while  the  examination  was  going  on,  which  attracted 
the  attention  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  said, 

"  Hold  on,  Weitzel,  I  can't  beat  you,  but  I  think  I  can  beat 
Butler." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Benjamin  F.  Butler.   Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  146. 

"If  There  Is  a  Man  out  of  Hell  That  Suffers  More  than  I  Do!  " 

The  next  day  my  friend,  Mrs.  Hoge,  and  myself  had  another 
interview  with  the  President,  on  business  entrusted  to  us.  If  we 
were  shocked  the  night  before  at  his  haggard  face,  how  much  more 
were  we  pained  when  the  broad  light  of  day  revealed  the  ravages 
which  care,  anxiety  and  overwork  had  wrought.  In  our  despondent 
condition  it  was  difficult  to  control  our  feelings  so  as  not  to  weep 
before  him.  Our  unspoken  thought  ran  thus:  "Our  national 
affairs  must  be  in  the  very  extremity  of  hopelessness  if  they  thug 


''THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY"  499 

prey  on  the  mind  and  life  of  the  President.  The  country  has  been 
slain  by  treason — he  knows  it,  and  that  it  cannot  recover  itself. " 

Our  business  ended,  before  we  withdrew  we  made  one  more 
attempt  to  draw  encouraging  words  from  the  reluctant  head  of  the 
nation, 

"Mr.  President,"  we  said  timidly,  "we  find  ourselves  greatly 
depressed  by  the  talk  of  last  evening;  you  do  not  consider  our 
national  affairs  hopeless,  do  you?     Our  country  is  not  lost? " 

"  Oh,  no ! "  he  said  with  great  earnestness,  "our  affairs  are  by  no 
means  hopeless,  for  we  have  the  right  on  our  side.  We  did  not 
want  this  War,  and  we  tried  to  avoid  it.  We  were  forced  into  it ; 
our  cause  is  a  just  one,  and  now  it  has  become  the  cause  of  freedom." 
(The  Emancipation  Proclamation  had  then  been  promulgated.) 
"And  let  us  also  hope  it  is  the  cause  of  God,  and  then  we  may  be 
sure  it  must  ultimately  triumph.  But  between  that  time  and  now 
there  is  an  amount  of  agony  and  suffering  and  trial  for  the  people 
that  they  do  not  look  for,  and  are  not  prepared  for. " 

No  one  can  ever  estimate  the  suffering  endured  by  President 
Lincoln  during  the  War.  I  saw  him  several  times  afterwards,  and 
each  time  I  was  impressed  anew  with  the  look  of  pain  and  weariness 
stereotyped  on  his  face. 

"I  envy  the  soldier  sleeping  in  his  blanket  on  the  Potomac," 
he  would  say,  in  his  torture.  And  sometimes,  when  the  woes  of  the 
country  pressed  most  heavily  on  him,  he  envied  the  dead  soldier 
sleeping  in  the  cemetery. 

"Whichever  way  the  War  ends,"  he  said  to  a  friend  of  mine, 
"I  have  the  impression  that  /  shall  not  last  long  after  it  is  over." 

After  the  dreadful  repulse  of  our  forces  at  Fredericksburg, 
when  the  slaughter  was  terrific,  the  agony  of  the  President  wrung 
from  him  the  bitter  cry: 

"  Oh,  if  there  is  a  man  out  of  hell  that  suffers  more  than  I  do, 
I'pity  him!" 

My  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  560. 

The  President  and  the  Wounded  Boy 

As  one  stretcher  was  passing  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  heard  the  voice  of 
a  lad  calling  to  his  mother  in  agonizing  tones.  His  great  heart 
filled.  He  forgot  the  crisis  of  the  hour.  Stopping  the  carriers  he 
knelt,  and  bending  over  the  boy  asked  tenderly : 


500  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  my  poor  child?" 

"  Oh,  you  will  do  nothing  for  me,  "  the  boy  replied.  "  You  are 
a  Yankee.  I  cannot  hope  my  message  to  my  mother  will  ever 
reach  her. " 

Mr.  Lincoln,  in  tears,  with  a  voice  of  tenderest  love,  convinced 
the  boy  of  his  sincerity,  and  the  lad  gave  his  good-bye  words  without 
reserve. 

These  the  President  directed  to  be  copied  and  sent  that  night, 
under  a  flag  of  truce,  into  the  enemy's  lines. 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  175. 

Contrast   between   Lincoln's   Manner   and   Stanton's — An   Oft-Repeated 

Occurrence 

"As  we  entered  the  Secretary's  office,  Mr.  Stanton  was  writing 
at  his  desk.     General  Hoffman  said  : 

"  'Mr.  Secretary,  this  is  the  lady  I  spoke  to  you  about.  She 
wishes  to  consult  you  about  releasing  her  son,  who  is  a  prisoner  of 
war,  wounded,  and  in  the  hospital  at  Fort  McHenr^^?'  The  General 
then  turned  and  left  the  room.  I  was  standing  near  the  door  of  the 
office.  Mr.  Stanton  neither  looked  at  me  nor  spoke.  After  a 
minute  or  two  the  Secretary  turned  round  in  his  chair,  and  ab- 
ruptly, in  a  severe  tone,  said: 

"  'So  you  are  the  woman  who  has  a  son  a  prisoner  of' war  in 
Fort  McHenry.  '  " 

"  'I  am  so  unfortunate, '  I  said. 

"  The  Secretary  then  answered  in  a  still  louder  and  sterner  tone 
of  voice,  leaving  me  standing  all  the  time: 

"  '  I  have  nothing  to  say  to  you,  and  no  time  to  waste  on  you. 
If  you  have  raised  up  sons  to  rebel  against  the  best  Government 
under  the  sun,  you  and  they  must  take  the  consequences. '  " 

"I  attempted  to  say  to  him,"  continued  the  lady,  "that  my 
son  was  a  mere  boy,  scarely  seventeen  years  old,  and  had  entered 
the  Confederate  service  without  my  knowledge  and  approval,  but 
before  I  had  uttered  five  words  he  fairly  yelled  at  me,  as  if  in  an 
insane  rage: 

"  I  don't  want  to  hear  a  word  from  you.  I've  no  time  to  waste 
on  you.     I  want  you  to  go  at  once,     I'll  do  nothing  for  you. ' 

"I  left, "  she  said,  "and  am  thankful  I  got  out  of  Washington 
alive.     Oh!  why  are  such  men  intrusted  with  power?" 


"  THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY"  501 

And  she  sobbed  as  if  her  heart  would  break. 

After  a  brief  silence,  I  asked  her  if  she  could  go  to  Washington 
again. 

"What!  to  see  that  man?  No,  sir!  not  for  all  Washington," 
she  exclaimed,  before  she  had  given  me  a  moment  for  explanation. 
....  I  drew  up,  next  day,  a  paper  addressed  to  the  President, 
concisely  stating  the  case,  and  asking  a  parole  for  the  boy.  She 
signed  it ;  the  surgeon  certified  it.  She  was  advised  to  call  on  the 
President,  and  given  directions  how  and  when  to  get  an  interview. 

After  an  absence  of  three  days,  she  returned  to  Fort  McHenry. 
.  .  .  Her  whole  countenance  was  luminous  with  joy.  Handing 
to  me  the  same  official  envelope  which  had  enclosed  the  document 
prepared  for  her  to  present  to  the  President,  she  pointed  to  an  order 
written  in  pencil  upon  it,  and  exclaimed  with  deep  emotion :  "  My 
boy  is  free!  Thank  God  for  such  a  President!  He  is  the  soul  of 
goodness  and  honor." 

The  order  was  as  follows:  "Executive  Mansion, 

"March  13,  1863. 
To  the  Commandant  at  Fort  McHenry: 

"General: — You  \\\\\  deliver  to  the  bearer,  Mrs.  Winston,  her 
son,  now  held  a  prisoner  of  war  in  Fort  McHenry,  and  permit  her  to 
take  him  where  she  will,  upon  his  taking  the  proper  parole  never 
again  to  take  up  arms  against  the  United  States. 

"Abraham  Lincoln." 

I  asked  her  how  the  President  received  her  when  she  met  him. 
"With  the  kindness  of  a  brother,"  she  replied.  "When  I  was 
ushered  into  his  presence  he  was  alone.  He  immediately  arose, 
and,  pointing  to  a  chair  by  his  side,  said: 

"  'Take  this  seat,  madam,  and  then  tell  me  what  I  can  do  for 
you.' 

"  I  took  the  envelope,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  read  the 
inclosures. " 

"  'Certainly, '  said  he,  and  he  proceeded  to  read  the  statements 
I  had  signed,  very  deliberately.  When  he  had  finished  reading  he 
turned  to  me,  and,  with  emotion,  said: 

"  'Are  you,  madam,  the  unhappy  mother  of  this  wounded  and 
imprisoned  son?' 

'"lam"  I  said. 


S02  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

'And  do  you  believe  he  will  honor  his  parole  if  I  permit  him  to 
take  it  and  go  with  you?' 

"  'I  am  ready,  Mr.  President,  to  peril  my  personal  liberty  upon 
it, '  I  replied. 

'You  shall  have  your  boy,  my  dear  madam, '  he  said.  'To 
take  him  from  the  ranks  of  rebellion  and  give  him  to  a  loyal  mother 
is  a  better  investment  for  this  Government  than  to  give  him  up  to 
his  deadly  enemies.'  Then  taking  the  envelope,  he  wrote  with  his 
own  pencil  the  order  which  you  see  upon  it.  As  he  handed  it  to  me, 
he  said: 

'There!  Give  that  to  the  commanding  officer  of  Fort 
Mc Henry,  and  you  will  be  permitted  to  take  your  son  where  you  will ; 
and  may  God  grant  he  may  prove  a  great  blessing  to  you  and  an 
honor  to  his  country. '  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  E.  W.  Andrews.     Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  505. 

"Go  Thou  and  Do  Likewise" 

Critics  have  arraigned  Mr.  Lincoln  for  lack  of  dignity;  and  he 
used  to  acknowledge  in  reply,  that  he  had  never  enjoyed  a  quarter's 
education  in  any  dignity  school  whatever.  While  his  Western 
training,  so  full  as  it  had  been  of  independent  individuality,  appeared 
to  make  the  requirements  of  etiquette  always  chafe  and  gall  him, 
you  can  imagine  how  astonished  was  Lord  Lyons,  the  stately 
British  Minister,  when  he  presented  the  autograph  letter  from 
Queen  Victoria,  announcing,  as  is  the  custom  of  European  mon- 
archies, the  marriage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  adding  that  what- 
ever response  the  President  would  make  he  would  immediately 
transmit  to  his  royal  mistress. 

Mr.  Lincoln  responded  instantly,  by  shaking  the  marriage 
announcement  at  the  bachelor  minister  before  him,  saying : 

"Lyons,  go  thou  and  do  likewise!" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.     Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  346. 

"Nothing  Touches  the  Tired  Spot" 

Early  in  April,  1863,  I  accompanied  the  President,  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  and  their  youngest  son,  "Tad,"  on  a  visit  to  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac — Hooker  then  being  in  command,  with  headquarters 
on  Falmouth  Heights,  opposite  Fredericksburg 

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504  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

April  8th  was  the  review  of  the  Fifth  Corps,  under  Meade;  the 
Second,  under  Couch ;  the  Third,  under  Sickles,  and  the  Sixth,  under 
Sedgwick.  It  was  reckoned  that  these  four  corps  numbered  some 
60,000  men,  and  it  was  a  splendid  sight  to  witness  their  grand 
martial  array  as  they  wound  over  hills  and  rolling  ground,  coming 
from  miles  away,  their  arms  shining  in  the  distance,  and  their 
bayonets  bristling  like  a  forest  on  the  horizon  as  they  marched 
away.  The  President  expressed  himself  as  delighted  with  the 
appearance  of  the  soldiery,  and  he  was  much  impressed  by  the 

parade It   was    noticeable   that   the    President    merely 

touched  his  hat  in  return  salute  to  the  officers,  but  uncovered  to 

the  men  in  the  ranks After  a  few  days  the  weather 

grew  warm  and  bright  .  .  .  and  the  President  became  more 
cheerful  and  even  jocular.  I  remarked  this  one  evening  as  we  sat 
in  Hooker's  headquarters,  after  a  long  and  laborious  day  of  review- 
ing.    Lincoln  replied : 

"It  is  a  great  relief  to  get  away  from  Washington  and  the 
politicians.     But  nothing  touches  the  tired  spot." 

On  the  9th  the  First  Corps,  commanded  by  General  Reynolds, 
was  reviewed  by  the  President  on  a  beautiful  plain  at  the  north  of 
Potomac  Creek,  about  eight  miles  from  Hooker's  headquarters. 
We  rode  thither  in  an  ambulance  over  a  rough  corduroy  road ;  and 
as  we  passed  over  some  of  the  more  difficult  portions  of  the  jolting 
way,  the  ambulance  driver,  who  sat  well  in  front,  occasionally  let 
fly  a  volley  of  suppressed  oaths  at  his  wild  team  of  six  mules. 
Finally  Mr.  Lincoln,  leaning  forward,  touched  the  man  on  the 
shoulder,  and  said: 

"Excuse  me,  my  friend,  are  you  an  Episcopalian?" 

The  man,  greatly  startled,  looked  around  and  replied: 

"No,  Mr.  President,  I'm  a  Methodist." 

"Well,  "  said  Lincoln,  "  I  thought  you  must  be  an  Episcopalian 
because  you  swear  just  like  Governor  Seward,  who  is  a  church- 
warden." 

The  driver  swore  no  more. 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  45. 

"I  Am  Only  a  Retail  Dealer"  in  Stories 

Lincoln  very  seldom  invented  a  story.  Once  he  said  to  me: 
"You  speak  of  Lincoln  stories.     I  don't   think  that  is  a  correct 


"  THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY''  505 

phrase.  I  don't  make  the  stories  mine  by  teUing  them.  I  am  only 
a  retail  dealer. " 

Numberless  stories  were  repeated  to  him  as  being  from  him,  but 
he  once  said  that,  so  far  as  he  knew,  only  about  one-sixth  of  all 
those  which  were  credited  to  him  had  ever  been  told  by  him.  He 
never  forgot  a  good  story,  and  his  apt  application  of  those  which 
lay  in  his  mind  gave  them  peculiar  crispness  and  freshness.  Here 
is  a  case  in  point : 

In  1863,  a  certain  captain  of  volunteers  was  on  trial  in  Wash- 
ington for  a  misuse  of  the  funds  of  his  company.  The  accused 
ofhcer  made  only  a  feeble  defense,  and  seemed  to  treat  the  matter 
with  indifference.  After  a  while,  however,  a  new  charge — that  of 
disloyalty  to  the  Government — came  into  the  case.  The  accused 
was  at  once  excited  to  a  high  degree  of  indignation,  and  made  a 
vigorous  defense.  He  appeared  to  think  lightly  of  being  convicted 
of  embezzling,  but  to  be  called  a  traitor  was  more  than  he  could 
bear. 

At  the  breakfast-table,  one  morning,  the  President,  who  had 
been  reading  an  account  of  this  case  in  the  newspaper,  began  to 
laugh  and  said: 

"This  fellow  reminds  me  of  a  juror  in  a  case  of  hen-stealing 
which  I  tried  in  Illinois  many  years  ago.  The  accused  man  was 
summarily  convicted.  After  adjournment  of  court,  as  I  was  riding 
to  the  next  town,  one  of  the  jurors  in  the  case  came  cantering  up 
behind  me,  and  complimented  me  on  the  vigor  with  which  I  had 
pressed  the  prosecution  of  the  hen-thief.     Then  he  added : 

"  'Why,  when  I  was  young,  and  my  back  was  strong,  and  the 
country  was  new,  I  didn't  mind  taking  off  a  sheep  now  and  then. 
But  stealing  hens!  Oh,  Jerusalem!' 

"Now  this  captain  has  evidently  been  stealing  sheep,  and 
that  is  as  much  as  he  can  bear.  " 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  289. 

"If  Anybody  Wants  to  Kill  Me,  He  Will  Do  It" 

One  foggy  night  in  the  spring  of  1863,  being  at  the  White  House, 
Lincoln  asked  me  if  I  would  not  walk  over  to  General  Halleck's 
headquarters  with  him ;  as  we  passed  out  of  the  family  part  of  the 
house,  the  President  turned  back  and  from  a  number  of  walking- 
sticks  in  a  corner  selected  a  heavy  one,   shod  and  tipped  with 


5o6  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

historic  iron  bolts  from  some  ship,  I  beHeve.  He  never  used  a  cane 
in  walking,  and  as  he  took  this  he  said,  dropping  his  voice  to  a 
serio-comic  and  confidential  whisper,  "Mother" — he  nearly  always 
called  his  wife  "Mother" — "nas  got  a  notion  into  her  head  that  I 
shall  be  assassinated,  and  to  please  her  I  take  a  cane  when  I  go  over 
to  the  War  Department  nights — when  I  don't  forget  it.  "  .  .  .  . 
Crossing  the  street  beyond  the  department  building,  the 
slouching  figure  of  a  man  near  the  Winder  building  attracted,  my 
notice  and  I  scarcely  paid  any  attention  to  the  President's  chat .  .  . 
When  we  returned,  an  hour  or  two  later,  I  was  positively  scared  by 
the  shadows  made  by  the  trees ....  The  President  noticed  this, 
perhaps,  for  when  we  had  reached  the  house  in  safety,  he  said, 
"  Now"  own  up  that  I  scared  you  by  putting  plots  and  assassinations 
into  your  head,  when  we  went  out.  "  I  confessed  I  was  worried  and 
that  I  should  not  have  thought  of  danger  if  he  had  not  mentioned  it. 
He  laughed  and  said  that  that  was  human  nature.  Then  he  added 
more  seriously : 

"  I  long  ago  made  up  my  mind  that  if  anybody  wants  to  kill 
me,  he  will  do  it.  If  I  wore  a  shirt  of  mail  and  kept  myself  sur- 
rounded by  a  body-guard,  it  would  be  all  the  same.  There  are  a 
thousand  ways  of  getting  at  a  man  if  it  is  desired  that  he  should  be 
killed.  Besides,  in  this  case,  it  seems  to  me,  the  man  who  would 
come  after  me  (Vice-President  Hamlin)  would  be  just  as  objection- 
able to  my  enemies — if  I  have  any.  " 

Persofial  Reminiscences  of  Lhtcoln,  Noah  Brooks,     Scribner's  Monthly,  Vol.  XV,  March,  1878, 
page  674. 

"Handsome  Is  That  Handsome  Does" 

He  said  to  a  Congressional  committee :  "  Here  I  am,  surrounded 
by  many  men  more  eager  to  make  money  out  of  the  nation's  distress 
than  to  put  a  shoulder  to  the  wheel  and  lift  the  Government  hub 
out  of  the  mire.  Do  you  w^onder  I  get  depressed  when  I  stand  here 
and  feel  how  hard  it  is  to  die,  unless  I  can  make  the  world  imder- 
stand  that  I  would  be  willing  to  die  if  I  could  be  sure  I  am  doing 
my  work  towards  lifting  the  burdens  from  all  mankind. " 

He  said  to  General  Campbell :  "  I  am  as  happy  as  if  our  armies 
had  won  a  victory  against  the  Rebels.  Mr.  Stevens  brought  one  of 
his  constituents  to  me  yesterday,  a  lady  seventy-five  years  of 
age,  whose  son,  only  nineteen  years  old,  was  sentenced  to  be  shot 


'THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY'' 


507 


to-morrow  at  noon  for  sleeping  at  his  post.  I  took  till  to-day 
to  examine  into  the  case.  I  cannot 
consent  that  a  farmer  lad,  brought 
up  to  keep  early  hours  in  going  to 
bed  and  resting,  shall  be  shot  to 
death  for  being  found  asleep  when 
he  ought  to  have  been  awake.  I 
pardoned  the  boy,  and  I  sent  a  mes- 
senger early  this  morning  with  the  wel- 
come new^s  to  the  boy's  regiment.  The 
mother,  like  Niobe,  all  tears,  has  just 
left  me,  and  as  she  went  out  my  heart 
came  up  in  my  throat  when,  between 
her  tears,  she  went  up  to  old  Thad 
Stevens,  who  had  helped  her  save  her 
son's  life,  and  said,  between  her  sobs, 
'You  told  me  Mr.  Lincoln  was  ugly. 
How  could  you  say  so,  Mr.  Stevens,  for 
I  think  he  has  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful faces  I  ever  saw!'  " 

Then    the    President   laughed    his 
sweet,  soft  laugh,  as  merry  as  a  boy ;  but  there  were  tears  in  his  eyes. 

RecoUections  of  Lincoln,  James  M.  Scovel.     Lippincott's  Magazine,  Vol.  LXHI,  February,  1899. 
page  28 1. 

"  Yet  Aaron  Got  His  Commission,  You  Know " 

Scripture  stories  and  incidents  were  also  used  by  Lincoln  to 

illustrate  his  argument  or  to  enforce  a  point.    Judge  E had  been 

concerned  in  a  certain  secret  organization  of  "radical"  Republicans, 
whose  design  was  to  defeat  Lincoln's  renomination.  When  this 
futile  opposition  had  died  out,  the  Judge  was  pressed  by  his  friends 
for  a  profitable  office.  Lincoln  appointed  him,  and  to  one  who 
remonstrated  against  such  a  display  of  magnanimity,  he  replied : 

"  Well,  I  suppose  Judge  E ,  having  been  disappointed  before, 

did  behave  pretty  ugly ;  but  that  wouldn't  make  him  any  less  fit  for 
this  place;  and  I  have  scriptural  authority  for  appointing  him. 
You  remember  that  when  the  Lord  was  on  Mount  Sinai  getting  out 
a  commission  for  Aaron,  that  same  Aaron  was  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  making  a  false  god  for  the  people  to  worship.  Yet  Aaron 
got  his  commission,  you  know." 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  200. 


wt'^WT 

^^        -  '4ra 

^^^^^^^^^l^^^^^^^^^^^^^^i^^^^^^^^^^^^^l 

THADDEUS    STEVENS 

5o8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


A  Guarded  Offer  to  "Nasby" 

Lincoln  also  seized  eagerly  upon  everything  that  Orpheus  C. 
Kerr  wrote,  and  he  knew  it  all  by  heart. 

It  was  in  1863  that  I  received  a  letter  from  Lincoln,  which 
illustrates  two  points  in  his  character;  viz.,  his  reckless  generosity, 
and  the  caution  which  follows  close  at  its  heels.  This  is  the  con- 
clusion of  the  letter  : 

"Why  don't  you  come  to  Washington  and  see  me?  Is  there 
no  place  you  want  ?  Come  on  and  I  will  give  you  any  place  you  ask 
for — that  you  are  capable  of  filling — and  fit  to  fill.  " 

....  He  had  read  a  letter  of  mine  which  pleased  him,  and 
the  generosity  of  his  nature  prompted  him  to  write  me  to  come  see 
him,  and  that  was  supplemented  by  an  offer  to  give  me  any  place 
I  asked  for.  After  he  had  finished  the  letter  and  added  his  signature, 
it  occurred  to  him  that  to  promise  a  man  of  whom  he  knew  but  little 
....  any  place  that  he  might  ask  for,  was  rather  risky.  So  he 
added  a  dash,  and  likewise  the  saving  clause,  "  that  you  are  capable 
of  filling,  "  and,  to  guard  himself  entirely, — ''and  fit  to  fill.  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby").     Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  448. 

"Oh,  What  Will  the  Country  Say!" 

Early  in  May  (1863)  the  country  was  anxiously  waiting  for 
news  from  Chancellorsville.  The  grand  movement  had  been  only 
partially  successful,  but  everybody  expected  to  hear  that  the  first 
repulse  was  only  tempoiary,  and  that  the  army  was  pressing  on 
gloriously  to  Richmond.  One  bright  afternoon,  in  company  with 
an  old  friend  of  Lincoln's,  I  waited  in  one  of  the  family  rooms  of  the 
White  House,  as  the  President  had  asked  us  to  go  to  the  Navy  Yard 
with  him  to  see  some  experiments  in  gunnery.  A  door  opened  and 
Lincoln  appeared,  holding  an  open  telegram  in  his  hand.  The 
sight  of  his  face  and  figure  was  frightful.  He  seemed  stricken  with 
death.  Almost  tottering  to  a  chair,  he  sat  down,  and  then  I 
mechanically  noticed  that  his  face  was  of  the  same  color  as  the  wall 
behind  him — not  pale,  not  even  sallow,  but  gray,  like  ashes.  Ex- 
tending the  dispatch  to  me,  he  said,  in  a  sort  of  far-away  voice : 

"Read  it — news  from  the  army." 

The  telegram  was  from  General  Butterfield,  I  think,  then  chief- 
of -staff  to  Hooker.     It  was  very  brief,  simply  saying  that  the  Army 


••  STONEWALL  "  JACKSON  AT  THE  BATTLE  OF  CHANCELLORSVILLE 

<Jeneral  Jackson  kept  right  up  with  his  own  advance,  mingling  his  frequent  cries  of  "  press  forward  " 
with  short  prayers  of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  He  rode  forward,  in  his  unrestrainable  impa- 
tience, one  hundred  yards  beyond  his  line  of  battle.  All  at  once  he  found  himself  under  the  fire 
of  the  Union  guns.  Turning  to  regain  his  lines  he  was  shot  by  his  own  men  and  mortally 
wounded.     He  died  a  few  days  later  at  Guiney's  Station. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol-  VII,  page  103. 


(509) 


5xo  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

of  the  Potomac  had  "  safely  "recrossed  the  Rappahannock  and  was 
now  at  its  old  position  on  the  north  bank  of  that  stream.  The 
President's  friend,  Dr.  Henry,  an  old  man  and  somewhat  impres- 
sionable, burst  into  tears, — not  so  much,  probably,  at  the  news,  as 
on  account  of  its  effect  upon  Lincoln.  The  President  regarded  the 
old  man  for  an  instant  with  dry  eyes  and  said, 

"What  w'lW  the  country  say?  Oh,  what  will  the  country  say!" 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks.     Scribner's  Monthly,  Vol.    XV,    March,  1879, 
page  674. 

The  Night  after  Chancellorsville — "Darkest  Just  before  Day" 

Did  he  never  at  any  time  reel  or  stagger  under  his  burden? 
Oh  yes,  once.  He  could  feel  a  hit  or  a  stab  at  any  time;  but  the 
things  which  hurt  him,  that  made  him  suffer,  that  were  slowly  killing 
him,  as  he  himself  declared,  did  not  interfere  with  the  perpetual 
efficiency  of  his  work.  If  there  were  hours  when  despondency  came 
and  when  he  doubted  the  result,  ....  he  did  not  tell  anybody ; 
but  there  w^as  one  night  when  his  wrestle  with  despair  was  long  and 
terrible. 

In  the  opinion  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  concurred  in  by  other 
good  judges,  the  darkest  hour  of  the  Civil  War  came  in  the  first 
week  of  May,  1863.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac,  under  General 
Hooker,  had  fought  the  bloody  battle  of  Chancellorsville.  The 
record  of  their  dead  and  wounded  told  how  bravely  they  had  fought, 
but  they  were  defeated,  losing  the  field  of  battle,  and  seventeen  thou- 
sand men 

The  country  was  weary  of  the  long  War,  with  its  draining  taxes 
of  gold  and  blood.  Discontent  was  everywhere  raising  its  head, 
and  the  opponents  of  the  Lincoln  Administration  were  savage  in 
their  denunciations.  Many  of  his  severest  critics  were  men  of  un- 
questioned patriotism.  The  mail  desk  in  the  Secretary's  office  at 
the  White  House  was  heaped  with  letters,  as  if  the  President  could 
read  them.  He  knew  their  purport  well  enough  without  reading. 
He  knew  of  the  forever  vacant  places  in  a  hundred  thousand  house- 
holds before  Chancellorsville.  If  more  than  a  third  of  each  day's 
mail  already  consisted  of  measureless  denunciation ;  if  another  large 
part  was  made  up  of  piteous  pleas  for  peace,  for  a  termination  of  the 
long  murder  of  the  Civil  War,  what  would  it  be  when  tidmgs  of  this 
last  slaughter  should  go  out  and  send  back  echoes  from  the  heart- 


-THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY 


511 


stricken  multitude?  Had  not  enough  been  endured,  and  was  there 
not  imminent  peril  that  the  country  would  refuse  to  endure  any 
more?  This  question  was,  perhaps,  the  darkest  element  in  the  prob- 
lem presented  to  Mr.  Lincoln. 

There  were  callers  at  the  White  House  the  day  on  which  the 
news  of  the  defeat  was  brought ;  but  they  were  not  the  customary 
throng.  Members 
of  the  Senate  and 
House  came,  with 
gloomy  faces;  the 
members  of  the 
Cabinet  came  to  con- 
sult or  to  condole 
with  the  President. 
There  were  Army 
and  Navy  officers, 
but  only  such  as  were 
sent  for.  The  house 
w^as  as  if  a  funeral 
were  going  forward, 
and  those  who 
entered  or  felt  it 
trod  softly,  as  people 
always  do  around  a 
coffin,  for  fear  they 
may  wake  the  dead. 

That  night,  the 
last  visitors  in  Lin- 
coln's room  were 
Stanton  and  Halleck. 
They  went  away  to- 
gether in  silence, 
at  somewhere  near 
nine  o'clock,  and  the  President  was  left  alone.  Not  another  soul 
was  on  that  floor  except  the  one  secretary,  who  was  busy  with  the 
mail  in  his  room  across  the  hall  from  the  President's ;  and  the  doors 
of  both  rooms  were  ajar,  for  the  night  was  warm.  The  silence  was 
so  deep  that  the  ticking  of  a  clock  would  have  been  noticeable ;  but 
another  sound  came  and  that  was  almost  as  regular  and  ceaseless. 


THOMAS  J.  ("STONEWALL")  JACKSON 
The  Confederate  General. 


512  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  UMCOLN 

It  was  the  tread  of  the  President's  feet  as  he  strode  slowly  back 
and  forth  across  the  chamber  in  which  so  many  Presidents  of  the 
United  States  had  done  their  work.  Was  he  to  be  the  last  of  the 
line?  The  last  President  of  the  entire  United  States?  At  that  hour 
that  very  question  had  been  asked  of  him  by- the  battle  of  Chancel- 
lorsville.  If  he  had  wavered,  if  he  had  failed  in  faith  or  courage  or 
prompt  decision,  then  the  nation,  and  not  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
would  have  lost  its  great  battle. 

Ten  o'clock  came,  without  a  break  in  the  steady  march.  .  .  . 
Eleven  o'clock  carrie  and  then  another  hour  of  that  ceaseless  march 
so  accustomed  the  ear  to  it  that  when,  a  little  after  twelve,  there 
was  a  break  of  several  minutes,  the  sudden  silence  made  one  put 
down  his  letters  and  listen. 

The  President  may  have  been  at  his  table  writing,  or  he  may — 
no  man  knows  or  can  guess ;  but  at  the  end  of  the  minutes,  long  or 
short,  the  tramp  began  again.  Two  o'clock,  and  he  was  walking  yet, 
and  when  a  little  after  three,  the  secretary's  task  was  done  and  he 
slipped  noiselessly  out,  he  turned  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  for  a 
moment.  It  was  so — ^the  last  sound  he  heard  he  went  down  was 
the  footfall  in  Lincoln's  room 

The  young  man  had  to  return  early,  and  he  was  there  again 
before  eight  o'clock  The  President's  room  door  was  open  and  he 
went  in.  There  sat  Mr.  Lincoln  eating  breakfast  alone.  He  had 
not  been  out  of  his  room ;  but  there  was  a  kind  of  cheery,  hopeful, 
morning  light  on  his  face  instead  the  funereal  battle-cloud  of  Chan- 
cellorsville.  He  had  watched  all  night,  but  a  dawn  had  come,  for 
beside  his  cup  of  coffee  lay  the  written  draft  of  his  instructions  to 
General  Hooker  to  push  fonvard,  to  fight  again.  There  was  a 
decisive  battle  won  that  night  in  that  long  vigil  with  disaster  and 
despair.  Only  a  few  weeks  later  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  fought 
it  over  again  as  desperately — and  the}'-  won  it — at  Gettysburg. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  of  His  Associates,  Edited  by  William  Hayes  Ward.     Lincoln's  Vigil, 
William  O.  Stoddard  (Private  Secretary),  page  46- 

Tad's  Innocent  Question 

Amid  the  cheering  men  at  Chancellorsville,  one  of  the  volun- 
teers lustily  called  out  to  the  President : 
"Send  along  more  greenbacks!" 


''THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY'' 


S^Z 


Lincoln  was  greatly  amused  by  the  incident  and  explained  to 
Tad   that    soldiers  had 
not  been  paid. 

Tad  thought  for  a 
moment,  then  said,  in 
his  innocence, 

"Why  didn't 
Governor  Chase  print 
some  more  green- 
backs?" 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby, 
page  185. 

["Governor"  Chase 
was  then  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury.— W.W.] 


Wise  Military  Suggestions 

to  "Fighting  Joe" 

Hooker 

On  the  5th  of  June, 
1863,  Lincoln  w  a  r  n  s 
General  Hooker  not  to 
run  any  risk  of  being 
entangled  on  the  Rap- 
pahannock "  like  an  ox 
jumped  half  over  a 
fence  and  liable  to  be 
torn  by  dogs,  front 
and  rear,  without  a  fair 
chance  to  gore  one  way  or  kick  the  other.  " 

On  the  loth  he  warns  Hooker  not  to  go  south  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock upon  Lee's  moving  north  of  it. 

"  I  think  Lee's  army,  and  not  Richmond  is  your  true  objective 
point.  If  he  comes  toward  the  upper  Potomac,  follow  on  his  flank, 
and  on  the  inside  track,  shortening  your  lines  while  he  lengthens  his. 
Fight  him,  too,  when  opportunity  offers.  If  he  stay  where  he  is, 
fret  him,  and  fret  him.  " 

On  the  14th  again  he  says: 

35 


From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of  Isaac  Markens,  Esq. 

THOMAS  LINCOLN 

Nicknamed  "  Tad  "  by  his  father.      He  died  in  Chicago,  July 

10,  1871,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  just  after  his  return 

from  Europe. 


514  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"  So  far  as  we  can  make  out  here,  the  enemy  have  Milroy  sur- 
rounded at  Winchester  and  Tyler  at  Martinsburg.  If  they  could 
hold  out  for  a  few  days,  could  you  help  them?  If  the  head  of  Lee's 
army  is  at  Martinsburg,  and  the  tail  of  it  on  the  plank  road  between 
Fredericksburg  and  Chancellors ville,  the  animal  must  be  very  slim 
somewhere;  could  you  not  break  him?" 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  i88. 

"Bail  out  the  Potomac  with  a  Teaspoon" 

An  ofificer  of  low  volunteer  rank  persisted  in  telling  and  re- 
telling his  troubles  to  the  President  on  a  summer  afternoon  when 
Lincoln  was  tired  and  careworn.  After  listening  patiently,  he 
finally  turned  upon  the  man,  and,  looking  wearily  out  upon  the 
broad  Potomac  in  the  distance,  said  in  a  peremptory  tone  that 
ended  the  interview: 

"Now,  my  man,  go  away,  go  away!  I  cannot  meddle  in  your 
case.  I  could  as  easily  bail  out  the  Potomac  River  with  a  teaspoon 
as  to  attend  to  all  the  details  of  the  army. " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  162. 

Frederick  Douglass  Calls  on  the  President 

My  first  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  summer  of  1863, 
soon  after  the  Confederate  States  had  declared  their  purpose  to  treat 
colored  soldiers  as  insurgents,  and  their  purpose  not  to  treat  any 
such  soldiers  as  prisoners  of  war  subject  to  exchange  like  other 
soldiers.  My  visit  to  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  reference  to  this  threat  of 
the  Confederate  States 

I  was  somewhat  troubled  with  the  thought  of  meeting  one  so 
august  and  high  in  authority,  especially  as  I  had  never  been  in  the 
White  House  before,  and  had  never  spoken  to  a  President  of  the 
United  States  before.  But  my  embarrassment  soon  vanished  when 
I  met  the  face  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

When  I  entered  he  was  seated  in  a  low  chair,  surrounded  by  a 
multitude  of  books  and  papers,  his  feet  and  legs  were  extended  in 
front  of  his  chair.  On  my  approach  he  slowly  drew  his  feet  in  from 
the  different  parts  of  the  room  into  which  they  had  strayed,  and  he 
began  to  rise,  and  continued  to  rise  until  he  looked  down  upon 
me,  and  extended  his  hand  and  gave  me  a  welcome. 

I  began,  with  some  hesitation,  to  tell  him  who  I  was  and  what 


"THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY''  515 

I  had  been  doing,  but  he  soon  stopped  me,  saying  in  a  sharp,  cordial 
voice : 

"  You  need  not  tell  me  who  you  are,  Mr.  Douglass,  I  know  who 
you  are,  Mr.  Sewell  has  told  me  all  about  you. " 

He  then  invited  me  to  take  a  seat  beside  him.  Not  wishing 
to  occupy  his  time  and  attention,  seeing  that  he  was  busy,  I  stated 
to  him  the  object  of  my  call  at  once.     I  said: 

.  .  .  "Mr.  Lincoln,  I  am  recruiting  colored  troops.  I  have 
assisted  in  filling  up  two  regiments  in  Massachusetts,  and  am  now 
at  work  in  the  same  way  in  Pennsylvania,  and  have  come  to  say  this 
to  you,  sir,  if  you  wish  to  make  this  branch  of  the  service  success- 
ful you  must  do  four  things: 

"First,  ....  give  the  colored  soldiers  the  same  pay  that 
you  give  white  soldiers. 

"Second,  ....  compel  the  Confederate  States  to  treat 
colored  soldiers,  when  taken  prisoners,  as  prisoners  of  war."    .    .    . 

To  this  little  speech  Mr.  Lincoln  listened  with  earnest  attention 
and  with  every  apparent  sympathy,  and  replied  to  each  point  in  his 
own  peculiar,  forcible  way 

Now,  as  to  pay,  we  had  to  make  some  concession  to  prejudice. 
"But,"  said  he, 

"  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Douglass,  that  in  the  end  they  shall  have 
the  same  pay  as  white  soldiers." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Frederick  Douglass.   Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  185. 

"  I  Can  Bear  Censure,  but  Not  Insult  " 

A  cashiered  officer  persisted  several  times  in  presenting  to  the 
President  a  plea  for  his  reinstatement  and  was  finally  told  that 
even  his  own  statement  did  not  justify  a  re-hearing.  His  final  appli- 
cation being  met  with  silence,  he  lost  his  temper  and  blurted  out: 

"  Well,  Mr.  President,  I  see  that  you  are  fully  determined  not 
to  do  me  justice." 

Without  evincing  any  emotion,  Mr.  Lincoln  rose,  laid  some 
papers  on  the  desk,  and  suddenly  seizing  the  officer  by  the  coat- 
collar,  marched  him  to  the  door.  After  ejecting  him  into  the  hall, 
he  said: 

"  Sir,  I  give  you  fair  warning  never  to  show  yourself  here  again! 
I  can  bear  censure,  but  not  insult.  " 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  169. 


5i6  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  I'm  Not  Going  to  Open  Shop  Here !  " 

President  Lincoln  was  passing  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  in 
Washington  one  day  when  a  man  came  running  after  him,  hailed 
him,  and  thrust  a  bundle  of  papers  in  his  hands.  This  angered 
the  President  not  a  little,  and  he  pitched  the  papers  back,  saying: 

"I'm  not  going  to  open  shop  here!" 

"  Abe  "  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  306. 

Two  Applications  for  Pardon,  with  Opposite  Results 

I  had  an  opportunity  during  the  War  of  witnessing  the  recep- 
tion by  the  President  of  two  applications  for  pardon,  which  met 
with  widely  different  fates.     The  case  of  the  first  was  this : 

A  young  man,  belonging  to  a  Virginia  family  of  most  treason- 
able character,  remained  in  Washington  when  the  rest  of  the  house- 
hold went  with  the  Confederacy.  Though  he  took  no  active  part 
with  the  loyalists  of  the  Capital,  he  was  so  quiet  and  prudent  as  to 
allay  their  suspicions  concerning  him,  and  finally  to  gain  their 
confidence.  He  opened  a  market  and  kept  for  sale  the  very  best 
quality  of  meats,  supplying  many  of  the  families  of  prominent 
officers  of  the  Government,  and  for  a  time  the  family  at  the  White 
House.  He  even  managed  to  obtain  a  sort  of  intimacy  in  some  of 
these  households,  through  the  intrigues  of  disloyal  servants.  As 
afterwards  appeared,  he  possessed  himself  of  information  that  was 
valuable  to  the  Rebels,  and  which  he  imparted  to  them  promptly 
and  unreservedly. 

When  Lee  moved  up  into  Pennsylvania  in  the  summer  of  1863, 
this  young  man  was  suddenly  missing "He  was  unex- 
pectedly called  away  by  business,"  was  assigned  as  the  reason  for 
his  absence.  During  that  June  raid  ....  the  young  man  was 
taken  prisoner  by  General  Kilpatrick's  men.  .  .  .  He  was  recog- 
nized, was  proved  to  be  a  spy,  and  but  for  the  President's  leniency 
would  have  been  hanged.  Instead  ...  he  was  sentenced  to 
twenty  years'  imprisonment.    .    .    .   Every  wire  was  pulled  that 

was  supposed  to  have  any  power  to  open  his  prison  door 

At  last  the  President  himself  was  besieged. 

It  was  in  the  President's  room,  while  waiting  my  turn  for  an 
interview,  that  I  learned  the  above  facts.  Tw^o  persons  were  plead- 
ing in  his  behalf — a  man  and  a  woman.   ...   It  was  a  very 


'THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY''  517 


plausible  story  as  they  told  it.  "Their  truly  loyal  young  kinsman 
had  gone  into  Maryland  to  buy  beeves  for  the  Washington  market 
was  'gobbled  up'  with  his  fine,  fat  kine  by  Stuart  (the  Confederate), 
who  confiscated  his  property  and  impressed  its  owner  into  his  cav- 
alry. And  then,  as  if  that  were  not  calamity  enough  for  one  da_, 
he  was  captured  again  by  Kilpatrick,  who  .  .  .  supposed  him 
to  be  a  rebel  like  the  rest.  " 

The  President  listened  impatiently  and  with  a  darkening 
face.  • 

"There  is  not  a  word  of  this  true!"  he  burst  in,  abruptly  and 
sternly,  "  and  you  know  it  as  well  as  I  do.  He  ivas  a  spy,  he  has 
been  a  spy,  he  ought  to  be  hanged  as  a  spy.  From  the  fuss  you 
folks  are  making  about  him,  who  are  none  too  loyal,  I  am  convinced 
that  he  was  more  valuable  to  the  enemy  than  we  have  yet  suspected. 
You  are  the  third  set  of  persons  that  has  been  to  me  to  get  him 
pardoned.  Now  I'll  tell  you  what — if  any  of  you  come  bothering 
me  any  more  about  his  being  set  at  liberty,  that  will  decide  his  fate. 
I  will  have  him  hanged,  as  he  deserves  to  be.  You  ought  to  bless 
your  stars  that  he  got  off  with  a  whole  neck;  and  if  you  don't  want 
to  see  him  hanged  as  high  as  Haman,  don't  you  come  to  me  again 
about  him. " 

The  petitioners,  as  may  be  imagined,  "stood  not  upon  the 
order  of  their  going,  but  went  at  once,  "  and  after  their  departure 
the  President  narrated  the  facts  which  I  have  given. 

The  other  case  was  of  a  different  character.  I  was  in  the  ante- 
chamber of  the  President's  room  one  morning,  waiting  the  exit  of 
Secretary  Stanton,  who  was  holding  an  interview  with  Mr.  Lincoln. 
....  There  were  some  fifty  men  in  attendance,  and,  besides 
myself,  only  one  woman.  She  was  sitting  in  the  corner  of  the 
anteroom,  with  her  face  to  the  wall.  .  .  .  She  was  poor  looking, 
shabbily  but  neatly  dressed,  middle-aged,  sunburnt,  and  careworn. 
Her  hands  were  tightly  clenching  a  handkerchief,  which  she  held 
close  against  her  breast,  with  the  evident  effort  to  master  the 
emotion  that  was  shaking  her  whole  frame,  and  she  was  weeping. 
I  saw  by  her  manner  that  she  was  in  trouble,  and  my  heart  went 
out  to  her. 

Putting  my  arm  about  her,  I  stooped  and  said  as  kindly  as 
I  could: 


5^1 8 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"My  poor  woman,  I  am  afraid  you  are  in  trouble;  can  I  do 
anything  to  help  you  ? "    .... 

"  Oh,  "  said  she,  "  I  am  in  great  trouble.  My  husband  is  to  be 
shot,  and  if  I  cannot  get  him  pardoned  nobody  can  comfort  me." 
A  kindly  appearing  man  stepped  forward,  a  country  neighbor 
of  the  poor  woman,  and  told  her  story.  Her  husband  was  a  major 
of  an  Illinois  regiment,  and  had  served  two  years  in  the  army  with 
honor  and  fidelity.  His  colonel  .  .  .  was  a  hard  man,  and,  when 
intoxicated,  abusive,  uncontrollable,  and  profane.  .  .  .  While 
under  the  influence  of  strong  drink,  he  had  come  fiercely  in  collision 
with  the  major,  and  a  most  profane  and  angry  altercation  ensued 

in  the  presence  of  half  the  regiment. 
Foul  epithets  were  hurled  back  and 
forth  until  the  colonel  called  the 
major  a  'coward,'  with  numerous 
obscene  and  profane  prefixes.  .  .  . 
The  major  was  a  sober  man, 
reticent,  somewhat  unpopular,  very 
cool,  and  slow  to  anger;  but  this- 
stung  him. 

"Take  that  back.  Colonel,"  he 
demanded,  fiercely,  drawing  his  re- 
volver, "or  you  are  a  dead  man. " 

The  colonel  repeated  the  insult, 
even  more  offensively.  Before  the 
bystanders  could  interfere,  the 
colonel  fell  dead  by  the  major's 
hand.  For  this  he  was  tried,  con- 
victed, sentenced  to  be  shot,  and  was  then  lying  in  jail  awaiting 
his  death.  He  had  written  his  wife  a  farewell  letter,  entreating 
her  to  be  reconciled  to  the  event — a  brief  epistle  which  she  gave 
me  to  read — full  of  tenderness  for  her  and  accusation  for  himself, 

but  evincing  great  manliness 

Senator  Henderson  of  Missouri  was  to  introduce  my  friends 
and  myself  to  the  notice  of  the  President,  and  we  entreated  that  he 
would  also  escort  this  poor  woman,  and  give  her  an  immediate 
opportunity  to  present  her  petition.  He  gladly  consented.  I 
sought  to  allay  her  agitation.    .    .    . 

"Won't  you  talk  for  me,"  she  entreated,  "I  am  so  tired;  I 


"  THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY"  519 

can't  think;  do  beg  the  President  not  to  allow  my  husband  to  be 
shot."    .... 

Immediately  we  were  ushered  into  the  apartment,  .  .  two  of  us 
leading  the  trembling  wife  between  us  as  if  she  were  a  child  learning 
to  walk.     The  townsman  of  the  woman  was  first  introduced,  saying : 

"This  woman,  Mr.  President,  will  tell  you  her  story.  " 

But  instead,  she  dropped  tremblingly  into  a  chair,  only  half 
alive ;  and,  lifting  her  white  face  to  the  President's  with  a  beseeching 
look,  more  eloquent  than  words,  her  colorless  lips  moved  without 
emitting  a  sound.  Seeing  she  was  past  speech,  I  spoke  quickly  in 
her  behalf,  stating  her  case,  and  urging  her  prayer  for  her  husband's 
life  with  all  the  earnestness  I  felt.  All  the  while  the  hungry  eyes 
of  the  woman  were  riveted  on  the  President's  face,  and  tearless 
sobs  shook  her  frame.    ... 

The  President  was  troubled. 

"Oh,  dear,  dear!"  he  said,  passing  his  hand  over  his  face  and 
through  his  hair.  "These  cases  will  kill  me!  I  wish  I  didn't  have 
to  hear  about  them!  What  shall  I  do?  You  make  the  laws," 
turning  to  the  members  of  Congress  in  the  room,  "and  then  you 
come  with  heart-broken  women  and  ask  me  to  set  them  aside. 
You  have  decided  that  if  a  soldier  raises  his  hand  against  his 
superior  officer,  as  this  man  has  done,  he  shall  die!  Then  if  I  leave 
the  laws  to  be  executed,  one  of  these  distressing  scenes  occurs,  which 
almost  kills  me. "    .    .    . 

The  attendant  of  the  wife  gave  the  President  an  abstract  of 
the  case,  which  had  been  furnished  by  the  major's  counsel  and 
which  the  President  began  gloomily  to  run  over.    .    .    . 

He  had  turned  over  some  half-dozen  pages  .  .  .  when  he 
suddenly  dropped  it,  sprang  forward  in  his  chair,  his  face  brightened 
almost  into  beauty,  and  he  rubbed  his  hands  together  joyfully. 

"  Oh, ' '  said  he,  "I  know  all  about  it  now !  I  know  all  about  it ! 
This  case  came  before  me  ten  days  ago,  and  I  decided  it  then.  . 
Without  any  solicitation  I  have  changed  his  sentence  of  death  to 
two  years'  imprisonment  ...  at  Albany.  Major  Blank  has  been 
a  brave  man,  and  a  good  man,  and  a  good  soldier,  and  he  had  had 
great  provocations  for  a  year. 

"  Your  husband  knows   all   about  it  before  now, "   he  said, 
addressing  the  wife;  "and  when  you  go  back  you  must  go  by  way 


520  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

of  Albany  and  see  him.     Tell  him  to  bear  his  imprisonment  like  a 
man,  and  take  a  new  start  in  the  world  when  it  is  over.  " 

The  major's  wife  did  not  at  first  comprehend,  but  I  explained 
to  her.  She  attempted  to  rise,  and  made  a  motion  as  if  she  were 
going  to  kneel  at  the  President's  feet;  but  instead  she  only  slid 
helplessly  to  the  floor  before  him,  and  for  a  long  time  lay  in  a  dead 
faint.  The  President  was  greatly  moved.  He  helped  raise  her; 
and  when  she  was  taken  from  the  room,  he  paced  back  and  forth 
for  a  few  moments  before  he  could  attend  to  other  business. 

"Poor  w^oman!"  he  exclaimed,  "I  don't  believe  she  would 
have  lived  if  her  husband  had  been  shot.  What  a  heap  of  trouble 
this  War  has  made!" 

My  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  566. 

"  Tell  Me  That  Horse's  Points  " 

So  voluminous  a  report  was  made  by  a  Congressional  com- 
mittee upon  a  new  gun  that  the  President  pathetically  said : 

"  I  should  want  a  new  lease  of  life  to  read  this  through.  Why 
can't  an  investigating  committee  show  a  grain  of  common-sense? 
If  I  send  a  man  to  buy  a  horse  for  me,  I  expect  him  to  tell  me  that 
horse's  points — not  how  many  hairs  he  has  in  his  tail. " 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  109. 

Lincoln's  Own  Reasons  for  Telling  Stories 

On  the  evening  of  Friday,  June  26th  (1863),  Colonel  John  D. 
Van  Buren,  his  son.  Major  Blank  and  I  turned  about  nine  o'clock 
from  the  highway  into  the  winding  roads  of  the  Soldiers'  Home .    .    . 

After  the  servant  returned  and  announced  that  the  President 
would  receive  us,  we  sat  for  some  time  in  painful  silence.  At  length 
we  heard  slow,  shuffling  steps  come  down  the  uncarpeted  stairs  and 
the  President  entered  the  room  as  we  respectfully  rose  from  our 
seats.  That  pathetic  figure  has  ever  remained  indelible  in  my 
memory.  His  tall  form  was  bowed,  his  hair  disheveled;  he  wore 
no  necktie  or  collar,  and  his  feet  were  partly  incased  in  very  loose, 
heelless  slippers.  It  was  very  evident  that  he  had  got  up  from  his 
bed,  or  had  been  very  nearly  ready  to  get  into  it  when  we  were 
announced,  and  had  hastily  put  on  some  clothing  and  those  slippers 
that  had  made  the  flip-flap  sound  on  the  bare  stairs. 


"THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY"  52I 

It  was  the  face  that,  in  every  line,  told  the  story  of  anxiety  and 
weariness.  The  drooping  eyelids,  looking  almost  swollen;  the 
dark  bags  beneath  the  eyes;  the  deep  marks  about  the  large  and 
expressive  mouth;  the  flaccid  muscles  of  the  jaws,  were  all  so 
majestically  pitiful  that  I  could  almost  have  fallen  on  my  knees 
and  begged  pardon  for  my  part  in  the  cruel  presumption  and 
impudence  that  had  thus  invaded  his  repose.'  .  .  .  Colonel  Van 
Buren,  in  fitting  words,  conveyed  the  message  from  Governor 
Seymour,  asking  the  President  in  Governor  Seymour's  name, 
to  pay  no  attention  to  the  newspaper  statements  as  to  the 
Governor's  unfriendliness,  and  assured  the  President  of  the 
Governor's  fixed  intention  to  fulfil  any  constitutional  call  upon 
him  for  funds  to  support  the  Government.  The  President  replied 
that  he  had  attached  no  importance  to  the  rumors  referred  to, 
and  that  he  needed  no  formal  assurances  that  the  Governor 
would  do  all  in  his  power  to  aid  him 

Deeply  moved  by  the  President's  evident  fatigue,  and  by 
his  cordial  treatment  of  us  in  spite  of  our  presumptuous  call. 
Colonel  Van  Buren  and  I  were  about  rising  to  make  our 
adieiix  when,  to  our  dismay,  the  Major  slapped  the  President  on 
his  knee  and  said: 

"  Mr.  President,  tell  us  one  of  your  good  stories,  " 

If  the  floor  had  opened  and  dropped  me  out  of  sight,  I  should 
have  been  happy. 

The  President  drew  himself  up,  and  turning  his  back,  as  far  as 
possible,  upon  the  Major,  with  great  dignity  addressed  the  rest  of  us, 
saying : 

"  I  believe  I  have  the  popular  reputation  of  being  a  story-teller, 
.but  I  do  not  deserve  the  name  in  its  general  sense ;  for  it  is  not  the 
story  itself,  but  its  purpose,  or  effect,  that  interests  me.  I  often 
avoid  a  long  and  useless  discussion  by  others  or  a  laborious  explana- 
tion on  my  own  part  by  a  short  story  that  illustrates  my  point  of 
view.  So,  too,  the  sharpness  of  a  refusal  or  the  edge  of  a  rebuke 
may  be  blunted  by  an  appropriate  story,  so  as  to  save  the  wounded 
feeling  and  yet  serve  the  purpose.  No,  I  am  not  simply  a  story- 
teller, but  story -telling  as  an  emollient  saves  me  much  friction  and 
distress. " 


522  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

These  are  almost  his  exact  words,  of  which  I  made  a  record 
that  very  night. 

Litwoln  on  His  Own  Story-telling,  Colonel  Silas  W.  Burt.     The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  LXXIII, 
February,  1907,  page  501. 

"  A  Bullet  Through  His  Hat  One  Dark  Night " 

From  early  youth  Lincoln  had  presentiments  that  he  would  die 
a  violent  death,  or  that  his  last  days  would  be  marked  by  some  great 
tragic  event.  From  the  time  of  his  first  election  to  the  Presidency, 
his  closest  friends  tried  to  make  him  understand  that  he  was  in 
constant  danger  of  assassination,  but,  in  spite  of  his  presentiments, 
he  had  such  splendid  courage  that  he  only  laughed  at  their  fears. 

During  the  summer  months  he  lived  at  the  Soldiers'  Home, 
some  miles  from  Washington,  and  he  frequently  made  the  trip 
between  the  White  House  and  the  Home  without  guard  or  escort. 
Secretary  of  War  Stanton  and  Ward  Lamon,  Marshal  of  the  Dis- 
trict (of  Columbia),  were  almost  constantly  alarmed  over  Mr. 
Lincoln's  carelessness  in  exposing  himself  to  danger. 

They  warned  him  time  and  again,  and  provided  a  suitable  bod}'"- 
guard  to  attend  him.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  would  often  give  his  guards- 
men the  slip,  and,  mounting  his  favorite  riding  horse,  "  Old  Abe, " 

would  set  out  alone  after  dark While  riding  out  to 

the  Home  one  night  he  was  fired  upon  by  some  one  in  ambush,  the 
bullet  passing  through  his  high  hat.  Mr.  Lincoln  w^ould  not  admit 
that  the  man  that  fired  that  shot  had  tried  to  kill  him.  He  always 
attributed  it  to  an  accident,  and  begged  his  friends  to  say  nothing 
about  it. 

The  Story  of  Lincoln's  Life,  from  "Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K. 
McClure,  page  497. 

"  Stanton's  Nearly  Always  Right!  " 

Some  of  the  biographers  are  enthusiastic  admirers  of  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  seems  never,  until  the  close  of  the  War,  to  have  enter- 
tained cordial  feelings  toward  the  President.  On  some  occasions 
Mr.  Lincoln's  patience  with  the  Secretary  of  War  is  rather  aston- 
ishing than  admirable.  A  committee,  headed  by  Mr.  Lovejoy, 
brought  the  Secretary  an  iinportant  order  of  the  President's 
and  met  with  a  flat  refusal  to  obey. 

"  But  we  have  the  President's  order, "  said  Lovejoy. 


''THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY''  523 

"Did  Lincoln  give  you  an  order  of  that  kind?"  said  Stanton. 

"He  did,  sir." 

"Then  he  is  a  blanked  fool, "  said  the  irate  Secretary. 

The  conversation  was  immediately  reported  to  the  President. 

"Did  he  say  I  was  a  blanked  fool?"  asked  the  President,  at 
the  close  of  the  recital. 

"He  did,  sir,  and  repeated  it." 

After  a  moment's  pause,  and  looking  up,  the  President  said : 

"  If  Stanton  said  I  was  a  blanked  fool,  then  I  must  be  one,  for 
he  is  nearly  always  right,  and  generally  says  what  he  means.  I 
will  step  over  and  see  him. " 

The  President  probably  wished  to  conceal  from  strangers,  at 
some  sacrifice  of  personal  dignity,  the  possibility  of  divisions  in  the 
Cabinet. 

The  Saturday  Review.     Editorial  on  Rice's  Reminiscences,  Vol,  LXIII,  November  6,  1886,  page  624. 

The  President  Like  a  Tight-Rope  Walker  with  a  Man  on  His  Back 

When  differences  in  the  Cabinet  became  dangerous  enough  to 
threaten  its  dissolution,  he  ceased  to  call  his  constitutional  advisers 
together,  and  for  over  a  year  they  had  no  formal  Cabinet  session. 
Twenty  United  States  Senators  called  upon  him  in  a  body,  intent  on 
complaining  of  Stanton's  conduct  of  the  War.  The  President's 
sense  of  humor  did  not  desert  him,  and  he  told  a  story  about 
Blondin  crossing  Niagara. 

"  Would  you, "  said  he,  "  when  certain  death  waited  on  a  single 
false  step,  would  you  cry  out,  'Blondin,  stoop  a  little  more!  Go  a 
little  faster !  Slow  up !  Lean  more  to  the  north !  Lean  a  little  more 
to  the  south?'  No;  you  would  keep  your  mouths  shut. 

"  Now,  we  are  doing  the  best  we  can.  We  are  pegging  away  at 
the  Rebels.  We  have  just  as  big  a  job  on  hands  a  was  ever  intrusted 
to  mortal  hands  to  manage.  The  Government  is  carrying  an 
imm.ense  weight ;  so,  don't  badger  it.  Keep  silent,  and  we  will  get 
you  safe  across." 

No  delegation  of  Senators  ever  again  attempted  to  dictate  to 
Abraham  Lincoln  the  manner  in  which  our  end  of  the  Civil  War 
should  be  conducted. 

Recollections  of  Lincoln,  James  M.  Scovel.     Lippincott' s  Magazint,  Vol.  LXIII,  February,  1809, 
page  278. 


524  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"  For  God's  Sake,  Don't  Ask  Me ! " 

A  Union  officer,  in  conversation  one  day,  told  this  story : 

"The  first  week  I  was  with  my  command  there  were  twenty- 
four  deserters  sentenced  by  court-martial  to  be  shot,  and  the  war- 
rants for  their  execution  were  sent  to  the  President  to  be  signed. 
He  refused.     I  went  to  Washington  and  had  an  interview.     I  said: 

"  'Mr.  President,  unless  these  men  are  made  an  example  of, 
the  army  itself  is  in  danger  Mercy  to  the  few  is  cruelty  to  the 
many.' 

"He  replied:  'Mr.  General,  there  are  already  too  many  weep- 
ing widows  in  the  United  States.  For  God's  sake  don't  ask  me  to 
add  to  the  number,  for  I  won't  do  it!'" 

"  Ahe  "  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  21s. 

"This  War  is  Killing  Me" 

When  Mrs.  Stowe  called  to  see  Lincoln  towards  the  close  of  the 
War,  she  says  that  she  spoke  of  the  great  relief  he  must  feel  at  the 
prospect  of  an  early  close  of  the  War  and  the  establishment  of  peace. 
And  he  said,  in  a  sad  way, 

"No,  Mrs.  Stowe,  I  shall  never  live  to  see  peace;  this  War  is 
killing  me;"  and  he  had  a  presentiment  that  he  would  not  live 
long  that  he  had  put  his  whole  life  into  the  War,  and  that  when  it 
was  over  he  would  then  collapse. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Henry  Ward  Beecher.     Edited    by  Allen  Thonidike  Rice, 
page  251. 

Billy  Brown  Goes  to  Washington  Just  to  See  Mr.  Lincoln 

"That  night  I  footed  it  up  to  the  Soldiers'  Home  where  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  livin'  then,  right  among  the  sick  soldiers  in  their  tents, 

"There  was  lots  of  people  settin'  around  in  a  little  room, 
waitin'  fer  him,  but  there  wa 'n't  anybody  there  I  knowed  and  I  was 
feelin'  a  little  funny,  when  a  door  opened  and  out  came  little  John 
Nicolay.  He  came  from  down  this  way;  so  I  just  went  up  and 
says,  'How'd  you  do,  John;  where's  Mr.  Lincoln?' 

"Well,  John  didn't  seem  over  glad  to  see  me. 

"  'Have  you  an  appointment  with  Mr.  Lincoln?'  he  says. 

"  'No  sir,'  I  says;  'I  ain't,  and  it  ain't  necessary.  Maybe  it's 
all  right  and  fittin'  for  them  as  wants  post-offices  to  have  appoint- 
ments, but  I  reckon  Mr.  Lincoln's  old  friends  don't  need  'em,  so 


THE  BURDEN  AND  HEAT  OF  THE  DAY" 


525 


you  just  trot  along,  Johnnie,  and  tell  him  Billy  Brown's  here  and 
see  what  he  says.'  Well,  he  kind  of  flushed  up  and  set  his  lips 
together,  but  he  knowed  me,  and  so  he  went  off. 

"In  about  two  minutes  the  door  popped  open  and  out  came  Mr. 
Lincoln,  his  face  all  lit  up.  He  saw  me  first  thing,  and  he  laid  hold  of 
me,  and  just  shook  my  hands  fit  to  kill.  'Billy,'  he  says,  'now  I  am 
glad  to  see  you. 
Come  right  in.  You're 
goin'  to  stay  to  supper 
with  Mary  and  me.' 
Didn't  I  know  it? 
Think  bein'  President 
would  change  him? — 
not  a  mite.  Well,  he 
had  a  right  smart  of 
people  to  see,  but  as 
soon  as  he  was  through 
we  went  out  on  the 
back  stoop  and  set 
down  and  talked  and 
talked.  He  asked  me 
about  pretty  nigh 
everybody  in  Spring- 
field. I  just  let  loose 
and  told  him  about 
the  weddin's  and 
births  and  the  funerals 
and  the  buildin',  and 
I  guess  there  wan't  a 
yarn  I'd  heard  in  the 
three  years  and  a  half 
he  had  been  away  that 

I  didn't  spin  for  him.  Laugh — you  ought  to  ha'  heard  him  laugh 
— just  did  my  heart  good,  for  I  could  see  what  they'd  been  doin' 
to  him.  Always  was  a  thin  man,  but,  Lordy,  he  was  thinner'n 
ever  now,  and  his  face  was  kind  a  drawn  and  gray — enough  to 
make  you  cry. 

"Well,  we  had  supper  and  then  talked  some  more,  and  about 
ten  o'clock  I  started  down  town.     Wanted  me  to  stay  all  night,  but 


A  FAVORITE  PORTRAIT 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady,  and  made  familiar  because 
reproduced  on  postage  stamps  and  bank-notes. 


526  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


I  says  to  myself,  'Billy,  don't  you  overdo  it.  You've  cheered  him 
up,  and  you  better  light  out  and  let  him  remember  it  when  he's 
tired.'  So  I  said,  'Nope,  Mr.  Lincoln,  can't,  goin'  back  to  Spring- 
field to-morrow.  Ma  don't  like  to  have  me  away  and  my  boy  ain't 
no  great  shakes  keepin'  store.' 

"'Billy,'  he  says,  'what  did  you  come  down  here  for?' 

"'I  came  to  see  you,  Mr.  Lincoln.' 

'"But  you  ain't  asked  me  for  anything,  Billy.  What  is  it? 
Out  with  it.  Want  a  post-office?'  he  said,  gigglin',  for  he  knowed 
I  didn't. 

*"No,  Mr.  Lincoln,  just  wanted  to  see  you — felt  kind  a  lone- 
some— been  so  long  since  I'd  seen  you,  and  I  was  afraid  I'd  forgit 
some  of  them  yarns  if  I  didn't  unload  soon.' 

"Well,  sir,  you  ought  to  seen  his  face  as  he  looked  at  me. 

'"Billy  Brown,'  he  says,  slow-like,  'do  you  mean  to  tell  me 
you  came  all  the  way  from  Springfield,  Illinois,  just  to  have  a  visit 
with  me,  that  you  ain't  got  no  complaints  in  your  pockets,  nor  any 
advice  up  your  sleeve?' 

"  'Yes,  sir,'  I  says,  'that's  about  it,  and  I'll  be  durned  if  I 
wouldn't  go  to  Europe  to  see  you,  if  I  couldn't  do  it  no  other  way, 
Mr.  Lincoln.' 

"  Well,  sir,  I  never  was  so  astonished  in  my  life.  He  just 
grabbed  my  hand  and  shook  it  nearly  off,  and  the  tears  just  poured 
down  his  face,  and  he  says, 

'"Billy,  you  never'll  know  what  good  you've  done  me.  I'm 
homesick,  •  Billy,  just  plumb  homesick,  and  it  seems  as  if  this  War 
never  would  be  over.  Many  a  night  I  can  see  the  boys  a-dyin' 
on  the  fields  and  can  hear  their  mothers  cryin'  for  em'  at  home, 
and  I  can't  help  'em,  Billy.  I  have  to  send  them  down  there. 
We've  got  to  save  the  Union,  Billy,  we've  got  to.' " 

He  Knew  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  page  39. 


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CHAPTER  XX 
Lincoln  and  Gettysburg 

Lee's  Invasion  of  Pennsylvania 

After  the  battle  of  Chancellorsville,  Hooker  reorganized  the 
Arrny  of  the  Potomac.  The  following  generals  were  assigned  to  the 
command  of  the  several  corps  of  the  army :  to  the  First,  Reynolds ; 
to  the  Second,  Hancock;  to  the  Third,  Sickles;  to  the  Fifth, 
Meade ;  to  the  Sixth,  Sedgwick ;  to  the  Eleventh,  Howard ;  and  to 
the  Twelfth,  Slocum 

At  the  same  time  Lee  divided  his  nine  divisions  of  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  hitherto  brought  together  in  two  army  corps 
commanded  by  Longstreet  and  Jackson,  into  three  army  corps  of 
three  divisions  each.  Longstreet  retained  the  command  of  the 
First,  Ewell  was  assigned  to  the  Second,  and  A.  P.  Hill  to  the  Third. 

While  Lee  was  engaged  in  reorganizing  his  army  he  was  at  the 
same  time  busy  in  planning  an  invasion  of  Maryland  and  Pennsyl- 
vania. Such  an  invasion  promised  relief  to  Pemberton's  army 
besieged  by  Grant  at  Vicksburg.  It  was  also  thought  that  a  cam- 
paign on  Northern  soil  would  be  helpful  to  the  Confederate  cause 
abroad.  The  time  seemed  favorable  for  a  movement  of  this  kind. 
It  was  known  that  in  May  and  June  Hooker's  army  would  lose 
about  fifteen  thousand  men  by  the  expiration  of  their  term  of  service. 
Moreover,  defeat  at  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville,  it  was 
supposed,  had  so  dampened  the  ardor  of  the  North  with  reference 
to  the  War  as  to  make  the  enlistment  of  new  troops  more  and  more 
difficult 

On  the  other  hand,  Lee  was  receiving  enthusiastic  recruits. 
To  his  men,  flushed  with  victory  and  eager  for  an  aggressive  cam- 
paign on  Northern  soil,  no  task  seemed  too  great.  ...  At  length 
all  was  ready.  Lee  was  at  the  head  of  a  solid,  strong,  effective 
body  of  men.  ....  On  May  28th  Hooker  informed  President 
Lincoln  that  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  was  about  to  make  an 

advance  northward 

(527) 


528 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


On  June  22nd,  Lee's  force  was  so  well  in  hand  that  he  ordered 

Ewell  to  cross  the 
Potomac  and  move  his 
columns  toward  the 

Susquehanna 

"If  Harrisburg  comes 
within  your  means," 
he  added,  "  capture  it.  " 
Meanwhile  Hooker 
was  making  his  way 
northward,  covering 
the    Capital     in    his 

march He 

desired  to  use  the  gar- 
rison at  Harper's  Ferry 
in  a  movement  on  Lee's 
communications,  but 
Halleck  refused  to  give 
his  consent,  and  on  the 
28th,  Hooker,  regard- 
ing this  refusal  as  an 
indication  that  his  plans 
would  continue  to  be 
thwarted  by  Halleck, 
asked  to  be  relieved  of 
his  command,  and  the 
request  was  granted.  . 
Fifth    Corps,    was    made 


GENERAL  ROBERT  E.  LEE 


commanding 


the 


General   Meade, 
Hooker's  successor. 

Gettysburg  and  Lincoln,  Henry  Sweetser  Burrage,  pages  3  to  15. 


The  Battle  of  Gettysburg  and  the  President's  Bitter  Disappointment 

The  country  could  not  rally  so  quickly  from  the  blow  of  Chan- 
cellorsville.     From  every  side  came  the  despairing  cry, 

"Abraham  Lincoln,  give  us  a  man!" 

But  he  had  no  man  of  whom  he  felt  surer  than  he  did  of 
Hooker,  and  for  two  months  longer  he  tried  to  sustain  that  General. 
A  fundamental  difficulty  existed,  however — what  Lincgln  called  ^ 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  529 

"family  quarrel" — an  antagonism  between  Halleck  and  Hooker, 
which  caused  constant  friction 

The  trouble  between  Halleck  and  Hooker  reached  a  climax  at  a 
critical  moment.  On  June  3d,  Lee  had  slipped  from  his  position  on 
the  Rappahannock  and  started  north.  Hooker  had  followed  him 
with  great  skill.  Both  armies  were  well  north  of  the  Potomac,  and 
a  battle  was  imminent  when,  on  June  28th,  angered  by  Halleck's 
refusal  of  a  request,  Hooker  resigned. 

During  the  days  when  Hooker  was  chasing  Lee  northward,  the 
President  had  spent  much  of  his  time  at  the  telegraph  office .... 
and  one  of  his  most  constant  inquiries  was :   .    .    . 

"Where's  Meade?"     "What's  the  Fifth  Corps  doing?" 

He  had  seen,  no  doubt,  that  he  might  be  obliged  to  displace 
Hooker,  and  was  observing  the  man  he  had  in  mind  for  the  posi- 
tion. At  all  events,  it  was  Meade  whom  he  now  ordered  to  take 
charge  of  the  army. 

The  days  following  were  ones  of  terrible  suspense  at  Wash- 
ington. The  North,  panic-stricken  by  the  Southern  invasion,  was 
clamoring  at  the  President  for  a  hundred  things.  Among  other 
demands  was  a  strongly  supported  one  for  the  recall  of  McClellan. 
Col.  A.  K.  McClure,  of  Philadelphia,  among  others,  urged  Lincoln 
to  restore  McClellan 

Lincoln's  view  of  the  matter  is  fully  shown  by  the  telegram 
which  he  sent  in  reply  to  one  from  Colonel  McClure : 

"War  Department, 
"Washington  City,  June  30,  1863. 
"A.  K.  McClure,  Philadelphia: 

' '  Do  we  gain  anything  by  opening  one  leak  to  stop  another  ?  Do 
we  gain  anything  by  quieting  one  clamor  merely  to  open  another, 
and  probably  a  larger  one? 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Three  days  after  his  appointment,  Meade  met  Lee  at  Gettys- 
burg, in  Pennsylvania,  and  after  three  days  of  hard  fighting  defeated 
him.  During  these  three  terrible  days — the  ist,  2nd  and  3d  of  July 
— Mr.  Lincoln  spent  most  of  his  time  in  the  telegraph  office.    .    . 

"  As  the  telegrams  came  in  ....  he  seemed  to  feel  the  need 
of  talking  to  some  one.     Finally  a  telegram  came  from  Meade  saying 

34 


530 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


that  under  such  and  such  circumstances  he  would  engage  the  enemy 
at  such  and  such  a  time. 

"'Yes',  said  the  President  bitterly,  'he  will  be  ready  to  fight  a 

magnificent  battle 
when  there  is  no 
enemy  there  to 
fight!'  " 

Perhaps  Lin- 
coln never  had  a 
harder  struggle  to 
do  what  he  thought 
to  be  just  than  he 
did  after  Meade 
allowed  Lee  to 
escape  across  the 
Potomac.  .  .  . 
In  a  telegram  to 
Simon  Cameron  .  . 
he  says: 

"I  would  give 
much  to  be  relieved 
of  the  impression 
that  Meade,  Couch, 
Smith  and  all,  since 
the  battle  of  Get- 
ty sburg  ,  have 
striven  only  to  get 
Lee  over  the  river 
without  another 
fight."  ...  He 
wrote  Meade  a  letter  in  which  he  put  frankly  all  his  discontent.  .  . 
He  never  sent  the  letter.  Thinking  it  over  in  his  dispassionate  way, 
he  evidently  concluded  that  it  would  not  repair  the  misfortune  and 
that  it  might  dishearten  the  General.  He  smothered  his  regret,  and 
went  on  patiently  and  loyally  for  many  months  in  the  support  of  hi§ 
latest  experiment. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  i^^ 


GENERAL  GEORGE  G.  MEADE 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  531 


"My  God !  Is  That  All?" 

Lincoln  watched  the  operations  of  the  armies  in  the  field  with 
the  deepest  interest,  the  keenest  insight,  and  the  widest  comprehen- 
sion. The  congratulatory  order  which  General  Meade  published  to 
his  troops  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  telegraphed  to  the  War 
Department.  During  those  days  and  nights  of  anxiety,  Lincoln 
clung  to  the  War  Office,  and  devoured  every  scrap  of  news  as  it 
came  over  the  telegraph  wires.  He  hoped  for  and  expected  sub- 
stantial fruits  from  our  dearly  bought  victory  at  Gettysburg. 

I  saw  him  read  General  Meade's  congratulatory  order.  When 
he  came  to  the  sentence  about  "  driving  the  invaders  from  our  soil,  " 
an  expression  of  disappointment  settled  upon  his  face,  his  hands 
dropped  upon  his  knees,  and  in  tones  of  anguish  he  exclaimed : 

"  'Drive  the  invaders  from  our  soil!'   My  God!  Is  that  all?'' 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  402. 

Why  He  Was  Not  So  Anxious  about  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg 

I  beg  to  give  a  significant  conversation  of  his  in  my  presence, 
in  July,  1863,  in  Washington,  D.  C,  on  the  Sunday  after  the  Battle 
of  Gettysburg.  General  Sickles,  of  New  York,  had  lost  a  leg  on  the 
second  day  at  Gettysburg,  while  in  command  of  the  Third  Corps, 
and  arrived  in  Washington  on  the  Sunday  following  (July  5th). 
As  a  member  of  his  staff  I  called  to  see  him,  and  while  there  Mr. 
Lincoln  also  called,  with  his  son  Tad,  and  remained  an  hour  or  more. 
He  greeted  Sickles  very  heartily  and  kindly,  of  course,  and  compli- 
mented him  on  his  stout  fight  at  Gettysburg,  and  then,  after  inquir- 
ing about  our  killed  and  wounded  generally,  passed  on  to  the  ques- 
tion as  to  what  Meade  was  going  to  do  with  his  victory.  They 
discussed  this  pro  and  con  at  some  length,  Lincoln  hoping  for  great 
results  if  Meade  only  pressed  Lee  actively,  but  Sickles  was  dubious 
and  diplomatic,  as  became  so  astute  a  man.  And  then,  presently, 
General  Sickles  turned  to  him,  and  asked  what  he  thought  during 
the  Gettysburg  campaign,  and  whether  he  was  not  anxious  about  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  gravely  replied,  no,  he  was  not;  that  some  of  his 
Cabinet  and  many  others  in  Washington  were,  but  that  he  himself 
had  had  no  fears.  General  Sickles  inquired  how  this  was,  and 
seemed  curious  about  it.     Mr.  Lincoln  hesitated,  but  finally  replied : 

"Well,  I  will  tell  you  how  it  was.     In  the  pinch  of  your  cam- 


532  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

paign  up  there,  when  everybody  seemed  panic-stricken,  and  nobody 
could  tell  what  was  going  to  happen,  oppressed  by  the  gravity  of 
our  affairs,  I  went  to  my  room  one  day  and  locked  the  door,  and  got 
down  on  my  knees  before  Almighty  God,  and  prayed  to  him  mightily 
for  victory  at  Gettysburg.  I  told  Him  this  was  His  war,  and  our 
cause  His  cause,  but  that  we  couldn't  stand  another  Fredericksburg 
or  Chancellorsville.  And  I  then  and  there  made  a  solemn  vow  to 
Almighty  God  that  if  He  would  stand  by  our  boys  at  Gettysburg  I 
would  stand  by  Him.  And  He  did  and  I  luiU.  And  after  that — I 
don't  know  how  it  was  and  I  can't  explain  it — but  soon  a  sweet 
comfort  crept  into  my  soul  that  things  would  go  all  right  at  Gettys- 
burg, and  that  is  why  I  had  no  fears  about  you.  " 

He  said  this  solemnly  and  pathetically,  as  if  from  the  very 
depths  of  his  heart,  and  both  Sickles  and  I  were  deeply  touched  by 
his  manner. 

Presently  General  Sickles  asked  him  what  news  he  had  from 
Vicksburg.  He  answered,  he  had  none  worth  mentioning,  but  that 
Grant  was  still  "  pegging  away  "  down  there,  and  he  thought  a  good 
deal  of  him  as  a  general  and  wasn't  going  to  remove  him,  though 
urged  to  do  so. 

"Besides,"  he  added,  "I  have  been  praying  over  Vicksburg 
also,  and  believe  our  Heavenly  Father  is  going  to  give  us  victory 
there  too,  because  we  need  it,  in  order  to  bisect  the  Confederacy 
and  have  'the  Mississippi  flow  unvexed  to  the  sea.'  " 

Of  course  he  did  not  know  that  Vicksburg  had  already  fallen, 
July  4th,  and  that  a  gunboat  was  soon  to  arrive  at  Cairo  with  the 
great  news  that  was  to  make  that  Fourth  of  July  memorable  in 
history  forever. 

Abraham  Lincoln:  Tributes  front  His  Associates,  Edited  by  William  Hayes  Ward.    Lincoln's  Faith 
in  Prayer,  Gen.  James  F.  Rusling,  LL.  D.,  page  22. 

Gold  win  Smith  and  "  Darky  Arithmetic  " 

It  was  an  agreeable  surprise  to  learn  that  the  chief  of  the  visiting 
party  was  Prof.  Goldwin  Smith,  one  of  the  firmest  of  our  English 
friends. 

As  the  President  rose  to  greet  them,  he  was  the  very  impersona- 
tion of  easy  dignity,  notwithstanding  the  negligee  of  his  costume; 
and  with  a  tact  that  never  deserted  him,  he  opened  the  conversation 
with  an  inquiry  as  to  the  health  of  John  Bright,  whom  he  said 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  533 

he  regarded  as  the  friend  of  our  country,  and  of  freedom  every- 
where  

There  were  two  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  devoted  friends  who  lived  in 
dread  of  his  little  stories.  Neither  of  them  was  gifted  with  humor. 
They  were  Senator  Wilson  and  Mr.  Stanton,  Secretary 
of  War ;  and  as  Professor  Smith  closed  a  statistical  statement  (of  the 
enormous  war  losses)  the  time  came  for  the  Massachusetts  Senator 
to  bite  his  lips,  for  the  President,  crossing  his  legs  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  show  that  his  blue  stockings  were  long  as  well  as  thick,  said 
that  in  settling  such  matters  we  must  resort  to  "darky"  arith- 
metic. 

"  'To  darky  arithmetic!'  "  exclaimed  the  dignified  representa- 
tive of  the  learning  and  higher  thought "  I  did  not  know, 

Mr.  President,  that  you  have  two  systems  of  arithmetic?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  "  said  the  President,  "  I  will  illustrate  that  point  by  a 
little  story:  Two  young  contrabands,  as  we  have  learned  to  call 
them,  were  seated  together,  when  one  said, 

"  'Jim,  do  you  know  'rithmetic?' 

Meanwhile  Senator  Wilson's  right  foot  was  playing  a  quick  but 
quiet  kind  of  devil's  tattoo.  Had  he  known  a  thousand  stories  he 
would  not  have  told  one  of  them  to  Professor  Smith  and  his 
grave  looking  British  friends,  and  he  was  mortified  that  the  Presi- 
dent, who  in  all  essential  things  had  few  superiors  in  easy  dignity  of 
manner,  should  so  inopportunely  indulge  in  such  frivolity. 

"  Jim  answered,  'No;  what  is  'rithmetic?' 

"  'Well, '  said  the  other,  'it's  when  you  add  up  things.  When 
you  have  one  and  one,  and  you  put  them  together,  they  makes  two. 
And  when  you  substracts  things.  When  if  you  have  two  things, 
and  you  takes  one  away,  only  one  remain?. ' 

"  'Is  dat  'rithmetic?' 

"  'Well,  'taint  true  den;  it's  no  good' 

"  Here  a  dispute  arose,  when  Jim  said : 

"  'Now,  you,  spose  three  pigeons  set  on  that  fence,  and  some- 
body shoot  one  of  dem,  do  t'other  two  stay  tliar?  I  guess  not,  dey 
flies  away  quicker'n  odder  feller  falls ;'  and,  Professor,  trifling  as  the 
story  seems,  it  illustrates  the  arithmetic  you  must  use  in  estimating 
the  actual  losses  resulting  from  our  great  battles.  The  state- 
ments you  refer  to  give  the  killed,  wounded  and  missing  at  the  first 


534  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

roll-call  after  the  battle,  which  always  exhibits  a  greatly  exaggerated 
total,  especially  in  the  column  of  missing. "      .... 

It  was  a  piece  of  rare  good  fortune  that  brought  Goldwin  Smith 
and  his  friends  to  my  side,  just  after  I  had  taken  my  usual  seat  at  the 

dinner-table The  gentleman   next   me   had   evidently 

parted  from  him  before  he  left  the  Executive  Chamber,  and  I  could 
not  help  hearing  the  conversation  between  them. 

"Professor,"  said  he,  "can  you  give  me  the  impression  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  made  upon  you  ? " 

"Yes,  "  said  he;  "it  was  an  agreeable  one.     Such  a  person  is 

quite  unknown  to  our  official  circles Indeed  I  think  his 

place  in  history  will  be  unique How  wonderfully  he  is 

endowed  and  equipped  for  the  performance  of  the  duties  of  the 
chief  executive  officer  of  the  United  States  at  this  time !  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  William  D.  Kelley.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  286. 

Recommending  a  Colonel  for  a  Colored  Regiment 

"  I  personally  wish  Jacob  Freese,  of  New  Jersey,  appointed 
colonel  of  a  colored  regiment,  and  this  regardless  of  whether  he  can 
tell  the  exact  color  of  Julius  Caesar's  hair.  " 

A  note  from  the  President  to  the  Secretary  of  War, 

"Well,  I  Don't  BeUeve  Shooting  Will  Do  Him  Any  Good" 

A  Senator — the  Hon.  Mr.  Kellogg — while  staying  in  Wash- 
ington, received  a  despatch  from  the  army  one  evening  to  the  effect 
that  a  young  townsman,  who  had  been  induced  to  enlist  through  his 
instrumentality,  had,  for  a  serious  misdemeanor,  been  convicted  by 
a  court-martial,  and  was  to  be  shot  the  next  day.  Greatly  agitated, 
Mr.  Kellogg  went  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  urged  a  reprieve. 
The  Secretary  replied: 

"Too  many  cases  of  this  kind  have  been  let  off,  and  it  is  time 
an  example  was  made. ' ' 

Finding  that  all  his  arguments  were  in  vain,  Mr.  Kellogg  said : 

"  Well,  Mr.  Secretary,  the  boy  is  not  going  to  be  shot — of  that  I 
give  you  fair  warning!" 

Leaving  the  War  Department,  he  went  directly  to  the  White 
House,  although  the  hour  was  late.  After  a  long  parley  with  the 
sentry  on  duty,  he  passed  in.  The  President  had  retired ;  but  the 
Senator  pressed  his  way  through  all  obstacles  to  his  sleeping  apart- 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  535 

ment.  In  an  excited  manner  he  stated  that  the  despatch  announc- 
ing the  hour  of  execution  had  but  just  reached  him. 

"  This  man  must  not  be  shot,  Mr.  President,  "  said  he.  "  I  can't 
help  what  he  may  have  done.  Why,  he  is  an  old  neighbor  of  mine ; 
I  can't  allow  him  to  be  shot!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  remained  in  bed,  quietly  listening  to  the  pro- 
testations of  his  old  friend,  who  had  been  in  Congress  with  him,  and 
at  length  said : 

"Well,  I  don't  believe  shooting  will  do  him  any  good.  Give 
me  that  pen. " 

And  so  saying  he  caused  another  poor  fellow's  lease  of  life  to  be 
prolonged. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  Ernest  Foster,  page  99. 

The  Conscription  Bill  and  the  Draft  Riot  in  New  York 

Congress  passed  another  very  important  bill  for  the  prosecution 
of  the  War,  called  the  Conscription  Bill.  This  gave  the  President 
power  to  create  a  national  army  by  enrolling  and  drafting  the  militia 
of  the  whole  country.  Every  State  was  required  to  raise  its  quota 
of  men  according  to  its  population.  When  this  great  army  was 
raised,  it  was  to  be  entirely  at  the  control  of  the  President. 

By  this  act  all  able-bodied  men  who  were  citizens,  or  who  had 
declared  their  intention  of  becoming  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  forty-five  years,  were  liable  to  be 
drafted  as  soldiers.  Those  who  chose  to  pay  three  hundred  dollars 
or  furnish  a  substitute  could  remain  at  home.  There  were  also  some 
other  exemptions,  such  as  the  only  son  of  a  widow,  or  the  only  son 
of  aged  and  infirm  parents,  who  were  dependent  on  their  boy  for 
support. 

The  draft  was  ordered  to  take  place  in  July,  and  it  was  publicly 
proclaimed  how  many  men  each  State  would  be  required  to  furnish. 
As  a  general  thing  the  loyal  people  approved  of  the  draft,  and 
thought  it  was  the  best  and  fairest  way  to  raise  men  to  carry  on  the 

War Some  of  the  President's  enemies  made  a 

great  noise  about  the  draft  and  said  it  was  a  very  despotic  measure, 
because  it  favored  the  rich  and  oppressed  the  poor. 

"  Any  rich  man,  "  said  they,  "  can  pay  his  three  hundred  dollars 
and  stay  at  home ;  but  if  a  poor  man  be  drafted,  he  must  go  whether 
he  wants  to  or  not." 


536  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


But  these  grumblers  did  not  do  much  mischief,  and  the  draft 
went  quietly  on  in  all  places  but  New  York  and  Chicago.  At  New 
York  there  was  a  shameful  riot  and  mob. 

The  names  of  all  the  men  liable  to  be  drafted  were  withdrawn 
and  placed  in  a  wheel.  A  man  appointed  to  draw  the  names  was 
blindfolded,  and  every  precaution  was  taken  to  prevent  cheating. 
The  wheel  w^as  turned,  and  as  many  names  as  were  required  were 
drawn  from  the  whole  number.  It  was  like  a  lottery;  nobody 
knew  whether  he  should  be  drafted  or  not  till  his  name  was  called. 
But  nearly  everybody  took  the  matter  very  good-naturedly,  and 
most  of  those  who  were  drafted  went;  but  some  paid  the  three 
hundred  dollars  and  stayed  at  home. 

In  New  York,  however,  things  did  not  go  very  smoothly.  The 
draft  began  there  on  the  nth  of  July,  which  was  Saturday.  No 
disturbance  occurred  on  that  day;  but  on  Sunday  some  bad  men 
put  their  heads  together  to  see  if  they  could  not  break  up  the  draft, 
which  w^as  no  sooner  commenced  on  Monday  morning  than  a  gang 
of  these  fellows  burst  into  one  of  the  buildings  w^here  the  business 
was  going  on,  broke  the  wheel  in  pieces,  tore  up  the  lists  of  names, 
and  set  the  ofifice  on  fire.  The  excitement  quickly  spread  all  over 
the  city.  The  police  did  their  best  to  restrain  it,  but  they  were 
almost  powerless  against  such  angry  mobs  as  were  now  filling  the 
streets.  The  city  authorities  called  out  the  militia,  but  unfor- 
tunately there  were  but  few  soldiers  available.  Nearly  all  had 
gone  to  Pennsylvania  to  repel  Lee's  invasion;  .  .  .  for  this  was 
only  a  few  days  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg. 

The  mob  knew  the  city  was  in  a  crippled  condition  and  took 

advantage  of  it For  four  days  they  seemed  to  have 

their  own  way.  They  burned  building  after  building,  among  others 
an   orphan   asylum   for  colored   children.     Negroes  were  hanged, 

beaten  to  death  and  mutilated  in  various  ways Of  course, 

during  the  riot  the  draft  could  not  proceed.  It  was  resumed,  how- 
ever, in  a  few  weeks;  and  as  soon  as  the  mob  knew  that  the  city 
was  now  in  a  position  to  defend  itself,  no  more  opposition  was  made. 

The  Children's  Lije  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louise  Putnam,  page  233- 

The  Quaker  and  the  Draft 

When  the  draft  was  made,  my  name  was  one  that  was  drawn 
along  with  those  of  several  other  young  Friends  [Quakers],  two 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  537 

others  in  our  little  meeting.  It  created  a  good  deal  of  excitement 
among  us.  The  two  others  paid  their  three  hundred  dollars  each, 
but  I  felt  it  right  to  do  nothing,  feeling  that  I  could  not  go  myself 
nor  give  money  to  hire  others  to  go.  The  proper  military  officer 
came  out  and  notified  me  that  I  would  be  expected  to  report  in  the 
military  camp  at  Lafayette  (Indiana)  for  training,  on  a  certain  day. 
I  told  him  that  I  could  not  conscientiously  be  there,  that  as  I  could 
not  fight  it  would  not  do  any  good  for  me  to  report.  Then  he 
demanded  the  three  hundred  dollars.     To  this  I  replied : 

"  If  I  believed  that  war  is  right  I  would  prefer  to  go  myself 
than  to  hire  some  one  else  to  be  shot  in  my  place.  " 

He  told  me  I  would  either  have  to  come  or  pay  the  three 
hundred  dollars,  or  he  would  be  forced  to  sell  my  property.  As  I 
was  firm  in  my  decision  ....  he  went  out  and  looked  over  the 
farm,  selecting  the  stock  that  he  proposed  to  sell  and  then  sat  down 
and  commenced  writing  bills  for  the  public  sale  of  our  horses, 
cattle  and  hogs.  While  he  was  writing,  dinner  was  ready,  and  when 
we  sat  down  to  the  table  we  insisted  on  his  eating  with  us.  We 
tried  to  keep  up  a  pleasant  conversation  on  various  subjects,  making 
no  reference  to  the  work  he  was  engaged  in.  After  dinner  he 
turned  to  me  and  said : 

"  If  you  would  get  mad  and  order  me  out  of  the  house,  I  could 
do  this  work  much  easier,  but  here  you  are,  feeding  me  and  my 
horse  while  I  am  arranging  to  take  your  property  from  you.  I  tell 
you  it's  hard  work!' ' 

We  told  him  we  had  no  unkind  feelings  toward  him,  as  we 
supposed  he  was  only  obeying  the  orders  of  those  who  were  superior 
to  him.  I  went  out  again  to  my  work  and  when  he  had  prepared 
the  sale  bills,  he  placed  one  on  a  large  tree  by  the  roadside  in  front 
of  the  house,  and  then  rode  around  and  placed  the  others  in  different 
places  in  the  neighborhood. 

A  few  days  before  the  time  had  arrived  for  the  sale  I  was  at 
Lafayette.     The  officer  came  to  me  and  said : 

"The  sale  is  postponed.  I  don't  know  when  it  will  be.  You 
can  go  on  using  your  horses.  " 

I  heard  nothing  more  about  it  for  several  years.  After  the 
War  closed  I  learned  that  Governor  Morton,  who  was  in  Wash- 
ington about  that  time,  spoke  to  President  Lincoln  about  it  and  he 
ordered  the  sale  to  be  stopped. 

jiutobiography  of  Allen  Jay,  The  American  Friend,  Seventh  Month  2,  1Q08,  page  42X. 


538  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Dennis  Hanks  Advises  the  President  to  "Spank"  Secretary  Stanton 

Old  Dennis  Hanks  was  sent  to  Washington  by  persons  inter- 
ested in  securing  the  release  from  jail  of  several  men  accused  of 
being  "  copperheads.  "  It  was  thought  old  Dennis  might  have  some 
influence  with  the  President.  The  latter  heard  Dennis's  story  and 
then  said : 

"  I  will  send  for  Mr.  Stanton.     It  is  his  business.  " 

Secretary  Stanton  came  into  the  room,  stormed  up  and  down, 
and  said  the  men  ought  to  be  punished  more  than  they  were.  Mr. 
Lincoln  sat  in  his  chair  and  waited  for  the  tempest  to  subside,  and 
then  quietly  said  to  Stanton  that  he  would  like  to  have  the  papers 
next  day.     When  he  was  gone,  Dennis  said : 

"  'Abe, '  if  I  was  as  big  and  as  ugly  as  you  are,  I  would  take  him 
over  my  knee  and  spank  him. " 

The  President  replied : 

"  No,  Stanton  is  an  able  and  valuable  man  for  this  nation,  and 
I  am  glad  to  bear  his  anger  for  the  service  he  can  give  the  people. " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  236. 

[Note. — While  waiting  for  the  papers  Dennis  Hanks  was  hand- 
somely entertained  at  the  White  House.  The  President  greatly 
enjoyed  talking  over  old  times,  and  gave  the  playmate  of  his  boy- 
hood a  watch  which  "Old  Dennis"  treasured  and  exhibited  until 
his  dying  day,  which  was  about  thirty  years  later. — W.  W.] 

Humor  of  the  Soldiers 

Anything  that  savored  of  the  wit  and  himior  of  the  soldiers  was 
especially  welcome  to  Lincoln.  His  fondness  for  good  stories  is  a 
well-accepted  tradition,  but  any  incident  that  showed  that  "the 
boys"  were  mirthfiil  and  jolly  in  all  their  privations  seemed  to 
commend  itself  to  him.  He  used  to  say  that  the  grim  grotesqueness 
and  extravagance  of  American  humor  were  its  most  striking  char- 
acteristics. There  was  a  story  of  a  soldier  in  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac, carried  to  the  rear  of  battle  ^Anth  both  legs  shot  off,  who, 
seeing  a  pie- woman  hovering  about,  asked, 

"  Say,  old  lady,  are  them  pies  sewed  or  pegged?" 

And  there  was  another  of  a  soldier  at  the  battle  of  Chancellors- 
ville,  whose  regiment,  waiting  to  be  called  into  the  fight,  was  taking 
coffee.     The  hero  of  the  story  put  to  his  lips  the  crockery  mug  which 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  539 

he  had  carried,  with  infinite  care,  through  several  campaigns.  A 
stray  bullet  just  missing  the  coffee-drinker's  head,  dashed  the  mug 
into  fragments,  and  left  only  the  handle  on  his  finger.  Turning  his 
head  in  that  direction,  the  soldier  angrily  growled, 

"Johnny,  you  can't  do  that  again!" 

Lincoln,  relating  these  two  stories  together,  said,  "  It  seems  as 
if  neither  death  nor  danger  could  quench  the  grim  humor  of  the 
American  soldier." 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  292. 

"No  Influence  with  This  Administration" 

On  the  table  near  him  he  kept  a  package  of  blank  cards,  such 
as  one  finds  on  every  hotel  counter.  On  these  were  written,  in  lead 
pencil,  some  of  the  most  important  orders  of  the  War.  Very  often 
he  would  address  Secretary  Stanton  with  a  penciled  request, 
"  if  the  exigencies  of  the  service  would  permit,  "  to  "  let  up  "  on  some 
chaplain,  civilian  or  soldier  who  complained  of  the  rough  treatment 
of  the  Secretary  of  War.  Stanton  sometimes  granted  these  re- 
quests, but  just  as  often  he  would  tear  up  the  card  in  the  face  of  the 
applicant,  and  tell  him  to  go  back  to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  tell  him  he'd 
"be  blanked  if  he  would  do  it."  .  .  .  .  When  Lincoln  would  again 
be  appealed  to  he  would  simply  look  up  or  down  on  the  victim  of 
Stanton's  wrath,  and  say,  quizzically, 
'"Well,  I  never  did  have  much  influence  with  this  administration." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 'ia.meslli.ScoveX,     Lippincott's  Magazine,  Vol.  LXIV,  August, 
1889,  page  246. 

The  Northern  Governor  and  the  Squealing  Boy 

I  recall  an  anecdote  by  which  he  pointed  out  a  marked  trait  in 
one  of  our  Northern  Governors,  .  .  .  [who]  was  earnest,  able  and 
untiring  in  keeping  up  the  war  spirit  in  his  State,  and  in  raising  and 
equipping  troops;  but  he  always  wanted  his  own  way,  and  illy 
brooked  the  restraints  imposed  by  the  necessity  of  conforming  to  a 
general  system.  Though  devoted  to  the  cause,  he  was  at  times  over- 
bearing and  exacting  in  his  intercourse  with  the  general  government. 

Upon  one  occasion  he  complained  and  protested  more  bitterly 
than  usual,  and  warned  those  in  authority  that  the  execution  of 
their  orders  in  his  State  would  be  beset  by  difficulties  and  dangers. 
The  tone  of  his  dispatches  gave  rise  to  an  apprehension  that  he 
might  not  co-operate  fully  with  the  enterprise  in  hand.     The  Secre- 


546  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

tary  of  War,  therefore,  laid  the  dispatches  before  the  President  for 
advice  or  instructions.  They  did  not  disturb  Lincoln  in  the  least. 
In  fact,  they  rather  amused  him.  After  reading  all  the  papers,  he 
said  in  a  cheerful  and  re -assuring  tone : 

"Never  mind,  never  mind;  those  dispatches  don't  mean  any- 
thing. Just  go  right  ahead.  The  Governor  is  like  a  boy  I  saw  once 
at  a  launching.  When  everything  was  ready  they  picked  out  a  boy 
and  sent  him  under  the  ship  to  knock  away  the  trigger  and  let  her  go. 
At  the  critical  moment  everything  depended  on  the  boy.  He  had 
to  do  the  job  well  by  a  direct,  vigorous  blow,  and  then  lie  flat  and 
keep  still  while  the  ship  slid  over  him. 

"  The  boy  did  everything  right,  but  he  yelled  as  if  he  were  being 
murdered  from  the  time  he  got  under  the  keel  until  he  got  out 
I  thought  the  hide  was  all  scraped  off  his  back;  but  he  wasn't  hurt 
at  all.  The  master  of  the  yard  told  me  that  this  boy  was  always 
chosen  for  that  job,  that  he  did  his  work  well,  that  he  never  had 
been  hurt,  but  that  he  always  squealed  in  that  way. 

"That's  just  the  way  with  Governor  Blank.  Make  up  your 
minds  that  he  is  not  hurt,  and  that  he  is  doing  his  work  right,  and 
pay  no  attention  to  his  squealing.  He  only  wants  to  make  you 
understand  how  hard  his  task  is,  and  that  he  is  on  hand  perform- 
ing it." 

Time  proved  that  the  President's  estimate  of  the  Governor 
was  correct. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  400. 

Lincoln's  Usual  "Swear- Word" 

On  one  occasion,  Lincoln,  when  entering  the  telegraph  office, 
was  heard  to  remark  to  Secretary  Seward,  "  By  jings !  Governor,  we 
are  here  at  last. "  Turning  to  him  in  a  reproving  manner,  Mr. 
Seward  said,  "  Mr.  President,  where  did  you  learn  that  inelegant 
expression?"  Without  replying  to  the  Secretary,  Mr.  Lincoln  ad- 
dressed the  operators,  saying: 

"Young  gentlemen,  excuse  me  for  swearing  before  you.  'By 
jings'  is  swearing,  for  my  good  mother  taught  me  that  anything  that 
had  a  'by'  before  it  was  swearing." 

The  only  time,  however,  that  Lincoln  was  ever  heard  really 
to  swear  in  the  telegraph  office  was  on  the  occasion  of  his  receiving 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  541 

a  telegram  from  Burnside,  who  had  been  ordered  a  week  before 
to  go  to  the  relief  of  Rosecrans,  at  Chattanooga,  then  in  great 
danger  of  an  attack  from  Bragg.  On  that  day  Burnside  tele- 
graphed from  Jonesboro,  farther  away  from  Rosecrans  than  he  was 
when  he  received  the  order  to  hurry  toward  him.  When  Burnside's 
telegram  was  placed  in  Lincoln's  hands  he  said,  "Damn  Jonesboro." 
He  then  telegraphed  Burnside : 

"September  21,  1863. 
"If  you  are  to  do  any  good  to  Rosecrans  it  will  not  do  to 
waste  time  with  Jonesboro.    ,    .    . 


"A.  Lincoln." 


Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates,  page  201. 


"  'Ploughed  Around'  That  Governor  for  'Three  Mortal  Hours*  " 

Upon  one  occasion  the  Governor  of  a  State  came  to  my  office 
bristling  with  complaints  in  relation  to  the  number  of  troops  re- 
quired from,  his  State,  the  details  for  drafting  the  men,  and  the  plan 
of  compulsory  service  in  general.  I  found  it  impossible  to  satisfy 
his  demands,  and  accompanied  him  to  the  Secretary  of  War's  office, 
whence,  after  a  stormy  interview  w^ith  Stanton,  he  went  alone  to 
press  his  ultimatum  upon  the  highest  authority.  After  I  had 
waited  anxiously  for  some  hours,  expecting  important  orders  or 
decisions  from  the  President,  or  at  least  a  summons  to  the  White 
House  for  explanation,  the  Governor  returned,  and  said  with  a  pleas- 
ant smile  that  he  was  going  home  by  the  next  train,  and  merely 
dropped  in  en  route  to  say  good-bye.  Neither  the  business  he  came 
upon  nor  his  interview  with  the  President  was  alluded  to.  As  soon 
as  I  could  see  Lincoln,  I  said : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  am  very  anxious  to  learn  how  you  disposed  of 
Governor  Blank.  He  went  to  your  office  from  the  War  Department 
in  a  towering  rage.  I  suppose  you  found  it  necessary  to  make  large 
concessions  to  him,  as  he  returned  from  you  entirely  satisfied." 

"  Oh,  no,  "  he  replied,  "  I  did  not  concede  anything.  You  know- 
how  that  Illinois  farmer  managed  the  big  log  that  lay  in  the  middle 
of  his  field!  To  the  inquiries  of  his  neighbors  one  Sunday,  he 
announced  that  he  had  got  rid  of  the  big  log. 

"  'Got  rid  of  it ! '  said  they,  ' how  did  you  do  it?  It  was  too  big 
to  haul  out,  too  knotty  to  split,  and  too  wet  and  soggy  to  burn. 
What  did  you  do?' 


54  2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"'Well,  now,  boys',  replied  the  farmer,'  if  you  won't  divulge  the 
secret,  I'll  tell  you  how  I  got  rid  of  it — /  ploughed  around  it." 

"  Now,  "  said  Lincoln,  "  don't  tell  anybody,  but  that's  the  way 
I  got  rid  of  Governor  Blank.  /  ploughed  around  him,  but  it  took 
me  three  mortal  hours  to  do  it,  and  I  was  afraid  every  minute  he'd 
see  what  I  was  at.  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln ,  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  399. 

The  First  Great  Sanitary  Fair,  at  Chicago 

It  would  not  be  possible  to  describe  in  detail  the  rare  and 
beautiful  articles  that  attracted  throngs  of  people  to  this  hall. 
The  most  noteworthy  of  all,  and  that  in  which  the  widest  interest 
was  felt,  was  the  original  manuscript  of  President  Lincoln's  "Procla- 
mation of  Emancipation"  of  the  four  million  slaves  of  the  South. 
This  was  the  gift  of  the  President  to  the  Fair,'  who  accompanied  it 
with  the  following  characteristic  letter : 

"Executive  Mansion, 

■'Washington,  Oct.  26,  1863. 

"To  the  Ladies  having  in  charge  the  Northwestern  Fair  for  the  Sani- 
tary Commission,  Chicago,  III. 

"  According  to  the  request  made  in  your  behalf,  the  original 
draft  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  is  herewith  enclosed. 
The  formal  words  at  the  top,  and  at  the  conclusion,  except  the 
signature,  you  perceive,  are  not  in  my  handwriting.  They  were 
written  at  the  State  Department,  by  whom  I  know  not.  The 
printed  part  was  cut  from  a  copy  of  the  preliminary  Proclamation, 
and  pasted  on  merely  to  save  writing.  I  had  some  desire  to  retain 
the  paper ;  but  if  it  shall  contribute  to  the  relief  or  comfort  of  the 
soldiers,  that  is  better. 

"Your  obedient  servant, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

This  manuscript  was  purchased  for  three  thousand  dollars,  by 
Thomas  B.  Bryan  for  the  Chicago  Soldiers'  Home,  of  which  associa- 
tion he  was  President.  It  was  finely  lithographed,  and  copies  were 
sold  by  the  Board  of  Managers  for  the  benefit  of  a  permanent  home 
for  invalid  Illinois  soldiers,  thousands  of  dollars  accruing  to  the 
fund  from  their  sale.     The  original  manuscript  was  finally  placed  in 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  543 

the  archives  of  the  Chicago  Historical  Society  for  safe  keeping,  and 
was  there  burned  at  the  time  of  the  great  conflagration. 

My  Story  of  the  War,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  page  429. 

"Nasby"  Has  an  Interview  with  the  President 

Church  of  St. ,  November  the  ist,  1863. 

I  felt  it  my  dooty  to  visit  Washington.  The  miserable  con- 
dishon  the  Dimokrasy  find  themselves  into,  sinse  the  elecshen, 
makes  it  necessary  that  suthin  be  did,  and  therefore  I  determined  to 
see  what  cood  be  eft'ectid  by  a  persnel  inter vew  with  the  President. 

Interdoosin  myself,  I  opened  upon  him  delikitly,  thus : 

"  Linkin,  "  sez  I,  "  ez  a  Dimekrat,  a  free-born  Dimekrat,  who  is 
prepared  to  die  with  neetnis  and  dispatch,  and  on  short  notis,  fer 
the  inalienable  rite  of  free  speech  knoin  also  that  you  er  a  goriller, 
a  feendish  ape,  a  thirster  after  blud,  I  speek. " 

"Speck  on,  "  says  he. 

"I  am  a  Ohio  Dimekrat,"  says  I,  "who  hez  repoodiatid 
Vallandigum, " 

"  Before  or  since  the  elecshen,  did  yoo repoodiate  him? "  sez  he, 

"Sinse, "  retortid  I. 

"  I  thot  so,  "  sed  he.  "I  would  hev  dun  it,  too,  hed  I  bin  you,  " 
continnered  he  with  a  goriller-like  grin. 

"  We  air  now  in  favor  uv  a  wiggerus  prosecushen  uv  the  war, 
and  we  want  you  to  so  alter  yoor  polisy  that  we  kin  act  with  you 
corjelly, "  sez  I. 

"Say  on,  "  sez  he. 

"  I  will.  We  don't  want  yoo  to  change  yoor  polisy  materially. 
We  air  modrit.  Anxshus  to  support  you,  we  ask  yoo  to  adopt  the 
follerin  trifling  changis : 

"  Restoar  to  us  our  habis  corpusses,  as  good  ez  new. 

"Arrest  no  more  men,  wimmin,  and  children  for  opinyun's  saik. 

"Repele  the  ojus  confisticashen  bill,  wich  irrytaits  the  Suthern 
mind  and  fires  the  Suthern  hart. 

"  Do  away  with  drafts  and  conskripshens. 

"  Revoak  the  Emansipashen  Proclamashen,  and  give  bonds 
that  you'll  never  ishoo  another. 

"  Do  away  with  tresury  noates  and  sich,  and  pay  nuthin  but 
gold. 


544  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LtNCOLN 

"Protect  our  dawters  frum  nigger  eqwality. 

"Disarm  yoor  nigger  soljers,  and  send  back  the  niggers  to 
their  owners,  to  conciliate  them. 

"  Offer  to  assoom  the  War  indetednis  uv  the  South,  and  plej 
the  Guverment  to  remoonerate  our  Suthrin  brethren  for  the  losses 
they  have  sustaned  in  this  onnatrel  war. 

"Call  a  convenshen  uv  Suthern  men  and  sech  gileless  Northern 
men  ez  F,  Peerce,  J.  Bookannun,  Fernandywood,  and  myself,  to 
agree  upon  the  terms  uv  reunion.  " 

"  Is  that  all? "  sez  the  goriller. 

"  No,  "  says  I  promptly.  "  Ez  a  garantee  uv  good  faith  to  us, 
we  shel  insist  that  the  best  haff  uv  the  orifises  be  given  to  Dimekrats 
who  repoodiate  Vallandigum.  Do  this,  Linkin,  and  yoo  throw  lard 
ile  on  the  trubbled  waters.  Do  this  and  yoo  rally  to  yoor  support 
thowsends  uv  noble  Dimekrats,  who  went  out  uv  offis  with  Bookan- 
non,  and  hev  bin  gettin  ther  whisky  on  tick  ever  sinse.  We  hev 
maid  sakrifises.  We  hev  repoodiated  Vallandigum — we  care  not 
ef  he  rots  in  Canady ;  we  are  willing  to  jine  the  War  party,  reservin 
to  ourselvs  the  poor  privilidg  uv  dictatin  how  and  on  wat  prinsip- 
ples  it  shel  be  carried  on.     Linkin!  Goriller!   Ape!    I  hev  dun.  " 

The  President  replide  that  he  would  give  the  matter  serious 
considerashen.  He  wood  menshen  the  idee  uv  resinin  to  Seward, 
Chais,  and  Blair,  and  wood  addres  a  serculer  to  the  postmasters, 
et  settry,  and  see  how  menny  uv  them  wood  be  willin  to  resine  to 
accomodait  Dimekrats.     He  hed  no  dout  sevral  wood  do  it  to  wunst. 

"  Is  ther  any  littel  thing  I  kin  do  fer  yduf" 

"  Nothin  pertikler.  I  wood  acept  a  small  postorifis,  if  sitooatid 
within  ezy  range  uv  a  distilry.  My  politikle  daze  is  well-nigh  over. 
Let  me  but  see  the  old  party  wunst  moar  in  the  assendency;  let 
these  old  eyes  once  moar  behold  the  Constooshn  ez  it  is,  the  Union 
ez  it  wuz,  and  the  nigger  ware  he  ought  2  be,  and  I  will  rap  the 
mantel  uv  privit  life  arownd  me,  and  go  in2  delirum  tremens  happy. 
I  hev  no  ambishen.  I  am  in  the  seer  and  yellow  leef.  These 
whitnin  lox,  them  sunken  cheek,  warn  me  that  age  and  whisky  hev 
dun  ther  perfeck  work,  and  that  I  shel  soon  go  hents.  Linkin, 
scorn  not  my  words.     I  hev  sed.     Adoo.  " 

So  sayin,  I  wavd  my  hand  impressively,  and  walkd  away. 

Petroleum  V,  Nasby, 
Pastor  uv  sed  Church,  in  charge, 

Bivers  Views,  Opinions  and  Prophecies,  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  (David  R.  Locke),  page  128. 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  545 


The  President  Invited  to  Speak  at  Gettysburg 

Mr.  David  Wills,  of  Gettysburg,  first  suggested  the  creation 
of  a  national  cemetery  on  the  battle-field,  and  under  Governor 
Curtin's  directions  and  co-operation  he  purchased  the  land  for 
Pennsylvania  and  other  States  interested,  and  superintended  the 
improvements.  It  had  been  intended  to  hold  the  dedication  cere- 
mony on  October  23,  1863,  but  Edward  Everett,  who  was  chosen  to 
deliver  the  oration,  had  engagements  for  that  time,  and  at  his 
suggestion  the  occasion  was  postponed  to  November  1 9th, 

On  November  2nd,  Mr.  Wills  wTote  the  President  a  formal 
invitation  to  take  part  in  the  dedication. 

"These  grounds  [said  his  letter  in  part]  will  be  consecrated  and 
set  apart  to  this  sacred  purpose  by  appropriate  ceremonies  on 
Thursday,  the  19th  inst.  Hon.  Edward  Everett  will  deliver  the 
oration.  I  am  authorized  by  the  governors  of  the  different  States 
to  invite  you  to  be  present,  and  to  participate  in  these  ceremonies, 
which  will  doubtless  be  very  imposing  and  solemnly  impressive. 
It  is  the  desire  that,  after  the  oration,  you,  as  Chief  Executive  of 
the  nation,  formally  set  apart  these  grounds  to  their  sacred  use  by 
a  few  appropriate  remarks."    .    .    . 

There  is  no  decisive  record  of  when  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  the 
first  sentences  of  his  proposed  address.  He  probably  followed  his 
usual  habit  in  such  matters,  using  great  deliberation  in  arranging 
his  thoughts,  and  molding  his  phrases  mentally,  waiting  to  reduce- 
them  to  writing  until  they  had  satisfactory  form. 

Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address,  John  G.  Nicolay.     The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  XXV,  February, 
1894,  page  596. 
\ 

The  Gettsyburg  Speech  to  Be  "Short,  Short,  Short!" 

One  November  day, — it  chanced  to  be  the  Sunday  before  the 
dedication  of  the  National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg — I  had  an 
appointment  to  go  with  the  President  to  Gardner,  the  photog- 
rapher on  Seventh  Street,  to  fulfil  a  long-standing  engagement. 
Mr.  Lincoln  carefully  explained  that  he  could  not  go  on  any  other 
day  without  interfering  with  the  public  business  and  the  photog- 
rapher's business,  to  say  nothing  of  his  liability  to  be  hindered 
by  curiosity -seekers,  "and  other  seekers,  "  on  the  way  thither. 

Just  as  we  were  going  down  the  steps  of  the  White  House,  the 
President  suddenly  remembered  that  he  wanted  a  paper,  and  after 

31 


546 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


hurrying  back  to  his  office,  soon  rejoined  me  with  a  long  envelope 
in  his  hand.  When  we  were  fairly  started,  he  said  that  the  envelope 
held  an  advance  copy  of  Edward  Everett's  address  to  be  delivered 

at  the  Gettysburg  dedication  on 
the  following  Thursday.  Drawing 
it  out,  I  saw  that  it  was  a  one-page 
supplement  to  a  Boston  paper,  and 
that  Mr.  Everett's  address  nearly 
covered  both  sides  of  the  sheet. 

The  President  expressed  his 
admiration  for  the  thoughtfulness 
of  the  Boston  orator  who  had  sent 
this  copy  of  this  address  in  order 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  might  not  trav- 
erse the  same  lines  that  the  chosen 
speaker  of  the  great  occasion 
might  have  laid  out  for  himself. 
When  I  exclaimed  at  its  length, 
the-  President  laughed  and  quoted 
the  line, 

"  Solid  men  of  Boston,  make  no  long  orations, " 

which  he  said  he  had  met  somewhere  in  a  speech  by  Daniel  Webster. 
He  said  that  there  was  no  danger  that  he  should  get  upon  the  lines 
of  Mr.  Everett's  oration,  for  what  he  had  ready  to  say  was  very 
short,  or  as  he  emphatically  expressed  it, — "  short,  short,  short ! "  In 
reply  to  a  question  as  to  the  speech  having  been  already  w^ritten, 
he  said  it  was  written,  "but  not  finished."  He  had  brought  the 
paper  with  him,  he  explained,  hoping  that  a  few  minutes  of  leisure 
while  waiting  for  the  movements  of  the  photographer  and  his 
processes  would  give  him  a  chance  to  look  over  the  speech. 

Glimpses  of  Lincoln  in  War  Time.Uoah  Brooks.     The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  XXVll,  January, 
1895,  page  46s. 


, 

;i,^<5p^^ 

'% 

J 

'^^ 

-a^ 

i 

EDWARD    EVERETT 


On  the  Way  to  Gettysburg 

When  Lincoln  was  on  his  way  to  the  National  Cemetery  at 
Gettysburg,  an  old  gentleman  told  him  that  his  only  son  fell  on 
Little  Round  Top  at  Gettysburg,  and  he  was  going  to  look  at  the 
spot.     Mr.  Lincoln  replied: 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  547 

"You  have  been  called  to  make  a  terrible  sacrifice  for  the 
Union,  and  a  visit  to  that  spot,  I  fear,  will  open  your  wounds  afresh. " 

"  But,  oh,  my  dear  sir,  if  we  had  reached  the  end  of  such  sacri- 
fices and  had  nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  place  garlands  on  the 
graves  of  those  who  have  already  fallen,  we  could  give  thanks  even 
amidst  our  tears ;  but  when  I  think  of  the  sacrifices  of  life  yet  to  be 
offered,  and  the  hearts  and  homes  yet  to  be  made  desolate  before  this 
dreadful  war  is  over,  my  heart  is  like  lead  within  me,  and  I  feel  at 
times  like  hiding  in  deep  darkness.  " 

At  one  of  the  stopping  places  a  beautiful  little  girl  having  a 
bunch  of  rosebuds  in  her  hand  was  held  up  to  an  open  window  of 
the  President's  car  lisping,  "  Flowerth  for  the  Prethident.  " 

The  President  stepped  to  the  window,  took  the  rosebuds,  bent 
down  and  kissed  the  child,  saying: 

"You  are  a  sweet  little  rosebud  yourself!  I  hope  your  life 
will  open  into  perpetual  beauty  and  goodness.  " 

"  Abe  "  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  357. 

The  President  and  Party  at  Gettysburg 

The  President's  special  train  left  Washington  at  noon  of 
Wednesday  the  i8th.  Three  members  of  the  Cabinet^Mr.  Seward, 
Secretary  of  State;  Mr.  Usher,  Secretary  of  the  Interior;  and  Mr. 
Blair,  Postmaster  General — accompanied  the  President,  as  did  the 
French  minister,  M.  Mercier;  the  Italian  minister,  M.  Bertinatti, 
and  several  legation  secretaries  and  attaches.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  also 
with  him  his  private  secretary,  Mr.  Nicolay,  and  his  assistant 
private  secretary,  Colonel  John  Hay,  Captain  H.  A.  Wise  of  the 
navy,  and  Mrs.  Wise  (daughter  of  Edward  Everett),  were  also  of 
the  party;  likewise  a  number  of  newspaper  correspondents  from 
Washington,  and  a  military  guard  of  honor  to  take  part  in  the 
Gettysburg  procession.    .    .    . 

No  accident  or  delay  occurred,  and  the  party  arrived  in  Gettys- 
burg about  nightfall.  According  to  invitation,  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to 
the  house  of  Mr.  Wills,  while  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  and  other 
distinguished  persons  of  his  party,  were  entertained  elsewhere.    .    .    . 

It  was  after  the  breakfast  hour  on  the  morning  of  the  i  gth  that 
the  writer,  Mr.  Lincoln's  private  secretary,  went  to  the  upper  room 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  occupied  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Wills,  to  report  for 


54S  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

duty,  and  remained  with  the  President  while  he  finished  writing 
the  Gettysburg  address,  during  the  short  leisure  he  could  utilize 
for  the  purpose  before  being  called  to  take  his  place  in  the  procession 
which  was  announced  on  the  program  promptly  at  ten  o'clock. 

There  is  neither  record,  evidence,  nor  well-founded  tradition 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  any  writing,  or  made  any  notes,  on  the  journey 

between  Washington  and  Gettysburg Mr.  Lincoln  carried 

in  his  pocket  the  autograph  manuscript  of  so  much  of  his  address 

as  he  had  written  at  Washington It  fills  one  page  of  the 

letter  paper  at  that  time  habitually  used  in  the  Executive  Mansion, 
containing  the  plainly  printed  blank  heading 

The  time  occupied  in  this  final  writing  was  probably  about  an 
hour,  for  it  is  not  likely  that  he  left  the  breakfast  table  before  nine 
o'clock,  and  the  formation  of  the  procession  began  at  ten.    .    . 

At  about  eleven  o'clock  the  Presidential  party  reached  the 
platform.     Mr.  Everett,  the  orator  of  the  day,  arrived  fully  half  an 

hour  later It  was  noon  before  Mr.   Everett  began  his 

address,  after  which,  for  two  hours,  he  held  the  assembled  multitude 
in  rapt  attention  with  his  eloquent  description  and  argument,  his 
polished  diction,  his  carefully  studied  and  practised  delivery. 

When  he  had  concluded  and  the  band  had  performed  the  usual 
musical  interlude.  President  Lincoln  rose  to  fill  the  part  assigned 
him.  It  was  entirely  natural  for  every  one  to  expect  that  this 
would  consist  of  a  few  perfunctory  remarks,  the  mere  formality  of 
official  dedication They  were,  therefore,  totally  unpre- 
pared for  what  they  heard,  and  could  not  immediately  realize  that 
his  words,  and  not  those  of  the  carefully  selected  orator,  were  to 
carry  the  concentrated  thought  of  the  occasion  like  a  trumpet-peal 
to  farthest  posterity. 

The  newspaper  records  indicate  that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  began 

to  speak  he  held  in  his  hand  the  manuscript  first  draft  of  his  address. 

.    .    .    But  it  is  the  distinct  recollection  of  the  writer,  who  sat 

within  a  few  feet  of  him,  that  he  did  not  read  from  the  written 

pages That  it  was  not  mere  mechanical  reading  is  more 

definitely  confirmed  by  the  circumstance  that  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not 
deliver  the  address  in  the  exact  form  in  which  his  first  draft  was 
written.  It  w^as  taken  down  in  shorthand  by  the  reporter  for  the 
"Associated  Press,  "  telegraphed  to  the  principal  cities,  and  printed 
on  the  following  morning  in  the  leading  newspapers :  [Page  551.] 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 
As  written  by  Lincoln  for  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Fair  at  Baltimore,  in  April,  1S64. 


icyC^^  z^^tj^ScC  .^^-^oc^  ^u  ^  ^^A^t-^i^/ud^D:^ 


(549) 


£j±b A>^  d^/u//7i,^=^  e^Vi4«-d**2!I--  ur*J  Afl-»v  (K^^tT 

y^M^tC^rut-^  Jb:^jCS   ijA.^-u^ut.cA^,    (#^y^>«-e>« /^%*.»^.^t:«^^ 

4^i^</*V  ^^>yf^  W^ei^  ^^^^  0^<^  -^^uo,    JxT/iS -^rrfiS 

«^c/»v«<^ /^<!H>C/  /y^aJ^ /^A^^^  ^^  (hiu*r  ^nC'^Z^  ^^^**jy 
J^pL  f^^  Arp^  J[Kjur^jL>^/y^Bje£^^f^^^ 

From  Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay. 

r.s.so) 


LINCOLN  AND  GETTYSBURG  551 

{The  Address  as  Delivered,  Applauded  and  Reported.) 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth  upon 
this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  Hberty  and  dedicated  to 
the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  [Applause.]  Now  we 
are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that  nation  or  any 
nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated  can  long  endure.  We  are 
met  on  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  are  met  to  dedicate  a 
portion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of  those  who  here  gave  their 
lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  we  should  do  this. 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate, 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead, 
who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add 
or  detract.  [Applause.]  The  world  will  little  note  nor  long  remember 
what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here. 
[Applause .]  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to 
the  unfinished  work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on. 
[Applause.]  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great 
task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take 
increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the  last 
full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  the  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain  [Applause] ;  that  the  nation  shall,  under 
God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth.     [Long  continued  applause.] 

Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address,  John  G.  Nicolay.     The  Century  Magazine,  Yo\.  XXV,  February, 
1894,  page  S97. 

An  Imperfect  Tribute 

An  exquisite  story  of  rare  pathos,  recently  published  in  a  maga- 
zine, has  been  widely  and  justly  admired.  It  is  entitled  "  The  Per- 
fect'Tribute"  and  deals  with  Lincoln's  address  at  Gettysburg.  In 
it  "the  perfect  tribute"  is  supposed  to  consist  in  the  failure  of  the 
hearers  of  that  great  speech  to  applaud  when  the  President  ceased 
speaking,  so  enchanted  were  they,  one  and  all,  with  the  beauty  of 
the  sentiments  expressed  by  the  distinguished  and  popular  orator. 
But  the  exact  reverse  was  the  fact.  The  auditors  applauded  re- 
peatedly, as  is  shown  in  the  stenographic  report  above  quoted. 

Lincoln  is  represented  in  this  story  as  deeply  disappointed 


552  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

^^^— ^■^■— ^™^^^^^— ^  '  ^^^—111  l»»ll» IIM       ■!»■■■  II.-..^-    --I—MI.     I.—  I        I        ^— ^^^^^^^^^.^-^  I  ■     »^^ 

because  of  the  lack  of  appreciation  manifested  by  the  crowd,  as  he 
had  fondly  hoped  those  words  would  live — although  he  is  represented 
to  have  dashed  them  ofi  in  a  few  moments  on  the  train  to  Gettys- 
burg! 

Edward  Everett  was  not  on  the  train  that  day,  and  other  dis- 
crepancies appear,  as  to  certain  well-known  facts  connected  with 
the  occasion.  No  details  concerning  Abraham  Lincoln  are  insig- 
nificant, especially  those  connected  with  that  immortal  address. 
It  had  been  proven  and  published  by  one  of  the  President's  secre- 
taries, that  Lincoln  did  no  writing  on  the  way  to  Gettysburg  and 
facsimiles  were  given  showing  that  the  address  had  been  written 
at  the  White  House. 

It  is  also  true  that  Lincoln  thought  slightingly  of  this  speech. 
He  said  to  his  friend  Lamon,  "It  won't  scour,''  meaning  that  it 
would  not  be  a  lasting  production.  His  hearers  did  not  begin  to 
appreciate  it  until  they  read  it  in  the  newspapers.  These  are  not 
minor  considerations;  they  are  facts  too  well  established  to  be 
disregarded  even  in  fiction.  Above  all,  had  it  been  true  that  the 
speech  was  received  without  applause,  it  was  a  belittling  concep- 
tion of  Lincoln's  mind  and  character  to  represent  him  as  brooding 
and  sighing  over  it  like  a  schoolgirl  on  graduation  day. 

"  The  Perfect  Tribute  "  is  a  beautiful  story,  but  it  is  an  imperfect 
tribute  to  the  manhood  and  genius  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
w.  w. 

Stanton's  Opinion  of  the  Gettysburg  Speech 

I  remember  going  into  Mr.  Stanton's  room  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment on  the  day  after  the  Gettysburg  celebration,  and  he  said : 
"Have  you  seen  these  Gettysburg  speeches?" 
"  No,  "  I  said,  "  I  didn't  know  you  had  them.  " 
He  said,  "Yes,  and  the  people  will  be  delighted  with  them. 
Edward  Everett  has  made  a  speech  that  will  make  many  columns 
in  the  newspapers,  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  perhaps  forty  or  fifty  lines. 
Everett's  is  the  speech  of  a  scholar,  polished  to  the  last  possibility. 
It  is  elegant  and  it  is  learned;  but  Lincoln's  speech  will  be  read 
by  a  thousand  men  where  one  reads  Everett's,  and  will  be  remem- 
bered as  long  as  anybody's  speeches  are  remembered  who  speaks 
the  English  language." 

Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet,  A  lecture  before  the  New  Haven  Colony  Historical  Society,  Charles  Ai 
Dana,  page  36. 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 


(553) 


CHAPTER  XXI 

Lincoln  and  Grant 

"I  Can't  Spare  This  Man— He  Fights" 

While  in  the  East  the  President  had  been  experimenting  with 
men,  in  the  West  a  man  had  been  painfully  and  silently  making 
himself.  His  name  was  Ulysses  S.  Grant.  The  President  had 
known  nothing  of  his  coming  into  the  army.  No  political  party 
had  demanded  him;  indeed  he  had  found  it  difficult  at  first,  West 
Point  graduate  though  he  was  and  great  as  the  need  of  trained 
service  was,  to  secure  the  lowest  appointment.  He  had  taken 
what  he  could  get,  however,  and  from  the  start  he  had  always  done 
promptly  the  thing  asked  of  him ;  more  than  that,  he  seemed  always 
to  be  looking  for  things  to  do.  It  was  these  habits  of  his  that 
brought  him  at  last,  in  February  of  1862,  to  the  command  of  a 
movement  in  which  Lincoln  was  deeply  interested.  This  was  the 
capture  of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Tennessee  River. 

"Our  success  or  failure  at  Fort  Donelson  is  vastly  important, 
and  I  beg  you  to  put  your  soul  in  the  effort,  "  Lincoln  wrote  .  .  . 
to  Halleck  and  Buell,  then  in  command  of  Missouri  and  Tennessee. 
While  the  President  was  writing  his  letters,  Grant,  in  front  of  Fort 
Donelson,  was  writing  a  note  to  the  Confederate  commander,  who 
had  asked  for  terms  of  capitulation : 

"  No  terms  except  unconditional  and  immediate  surrender  can 
be  accepted.     I  propose  to  move  immediately  on  your  works.  " 

To  the  harassed  President  at  Washington  these  words  must 
have  been  like  a  war-cry.  He  had  spent  the  winter  in  a  vain  effort 
to  inspire  his  supposed  great  generals  with  the  very  spirit  breathed 
in  the  words  and  deeds  of  this  unknown  officer  in  the  West. 

Grant  was  now  made  a  Major-General  and  entrusted  with 
larger  things.     He  always  brought  about  results,  but  in  spite  of  this 

the  President  saw  there  was  much  opposition  to  him 

Finally,  on  July  1 6th Grant  was  put  at  the  head  of  the 

(554^ 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  555 

armies  of  the  West Men  came  to  the  President  urging 

his  removal.     Lincohi  shook  his  head. 

"  I  can't  spare  this  man,  "  he  said,  "  he  fights.  '* 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  142. 

"You  Were  Right  and  I  Was  Wrong" 

About  nine  days  after  Vicksburg  had  fallen  the  President  sent 
the  following  letter  to  General  Grant,  who  was  deeply  touched  by  its 
frank  and  manly  character,  and  the  sincerity  of  its  tone : 

"Executive  Mansion, 
"Washington,  D.  C,  July   lo,  1863. 
"  Aly  Dear  General: 

"I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met  personally.  I 
write  th's  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  for  the  almost  inesti- 
mable services  you  have  done  the  country.  I  wish  to  say  a  word  fur- 
ther. When  you  first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I  thought 
you  should  do  what  you  finally  did — march  the  troops  across  the 
neck,  run  the  batteries  with  the  transports,  and  thus  go  below ;  and 
I  never  had  any  faith,  except  a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better 
than  I,  that  the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed. 
When  you  got  below  and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf  and  vicinity, 
I  thought  you  should  go  down  the  river  and  join  General  Banks; 
and  when  you  turned  northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it 
was  a  mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  a  personal  acknowledgment 
that  you  were  right  and  I  was  wrong, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  VIII,  October,  1885,  page  940. 

Pemberton's  Army  and  Sykes's  Yellow  Dog 

Grant's  successes  brought  with  them  the  usual  number  of 
jealousies  and  rivalries.  Political  generals  had  their  advocates  in 
Washington  to  plead  their  cause,  while  Grant  stood  without  friends 
at  court.  His  detractors  gathered  at  times  a  great  deal  of  strength 
in  their  efforts  to  supplant  him  with  a  general  of  their  own  choosing, 
and  Lincoln  was  beset  by  many  a  delegation  who  insisted  that 
nothing  would  harmonize  matters  in  the  West  but  Grant's  removal. 
This  nagging  continued  even  after  his  great  triumph  at  Vicksburg. 

Lincoln  always  enjoyed  telling  the  General,  after  the  two  had 
become  personally  intimate,   how  the  cross-roads  wiseacres  had 


5s6  THE  STORY-LIFE  OE  LINCOLN 

criticised  his  campaigns.     One  day,  after  dwelling  for  some  time  on 
this  subject,  he  said  to  Grant: 

"After  Vicksburg  I  thought  it  was  about  time  to  shut  down  on 
this  sort  of  thing,  so  one  day,  when  a  delegation  came  to  see  me  and 
had  spent  half  an  hour  in  trying  to  show  me  the  fatal  mistake  you 
had  made  in  paroling  Pemberton's  army,  and  insisting  that  the 
Rebels  would  violate  their  paroles  and  in  less  than  a  month  confront 
you  again  in  the  ranks,  and  have  to  be  whipped  all  over  again,  I 
thought  I  should  get  rid  of  them  best  by  telling  them  a  story  about 
Sykes's  dog. 

"  'Have  you  ever  heard  about  Sykes's  yellow  dog?'  said  I  to 
the  spokesman  of  the  delegation.     He  said  he  hadn't. 

"  'Well,  I  must  tell  you  about  him,'  said  I.  Sykes  had  a 
yellow  dog  he  set  great  store  by,  but  there  were  a  lot  of  small  boys 
around  the  village,  and  that's  always  a  bad  thing  for  dogs,  you 
know.  These  boys  didn't  share  Sykes's  views,  and  they  were  not 
disposed  to  let  the  dog  have  a  fair  show.  Even  Sykes  had  to  admit 
that  the  dog  was  getting  unpopular ;  in  fact  it  was  soon  seen  that  a 
prejudice  was  growing  up  against  that  dog  that  threatened  to  wreck 
all  his  future  prospects  in  life.  The  boys,  after  meditating  how 
they  could  get  the  best  of  him,  finally  fixed  up  a  cartridge  with  a 
long  fuse,  put  the  cartridge  in  a  piece  of  meat,  dropped  the  meat  in 
the  road  in  front  of  Sykes's  door,  and  then  perched  themselves  on  a 
fence  a  good  distance  off  with  the  end  of  the  fuse  in  their  hands, 
Then  they  whistled  for  the  dog.  When  he  came  out  he  scented  the 
bait,  and  bolted  the  meat,  cartridge  and  all.  The  boys  touched  off 
the  fuse  with  a  cigar  and  in  about  a  second  a  report  came  from  that 
dog  that  sounded  like  a  small  clap  of  thunder.  Sykes  came  bound- 
ing out  of  the  house,  and  yelled : 

"'What's  up!     Anything  busted?' 

"There  was  no  reply  except  a  snicker  from  the  small  boys 
roosting  on  the  fence,  but  as  Sykes  looked  up  he  saw  the  whole  air 
filled  with  pieces  of  yellow  dog.  He  picked  up  the  biggest  piece  he 
could  find,  a  portion  of  the  back  with  a  part  of  the  tail  still  hanging 
to  it,  and  after  turning  it  around  and  looking  it  all  over  he  said : 

"  'Well,  I  guess  he'll  never  be  much  account  again — as  a  dog!' 

"  'And  I  guess  Pemberton's  forces  will  never  be  much  account 
again — as  an  army!' 

"The  delegation  began  looking  around  for  their  hats  before  I 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  557 


had  quite  got  to  the  end  of  the  story,  and  I  was  never  bothered  any 
more  after  that  about  superseding  the  commander  of  the  Army  of 
the  Tennessee. " 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  VIII,  October,  1885,  page  940. 

The  Statue   of  Liberty  and   Grant's  Favorite   Brand   of   Whiskey 

Armed  with  a  letter  from  General  Grant  and  with  my  report,  I 
presented  myself  at  the  White  House.  There  was  no  delay,  no 
obstructive  formality 

My  call  was  so  timed  that  the  multitude  of  visitors  as  well  as 

the  clerks — "the  boys,"  as  Mr.   Lincoln  called  them — were  gone 

for  the  day,  and  the  President  was  sitting  by  his  office  desk  alone .    . 

.    .   Mr.  Lincoln  immediately  began  to  ask  me  questions  about 

his  "fighting  General,  "  as  he  already  called  Grant.    .    .    . 

After  the  President  had  been  questioning  me  for  some  time, 
he  quickly  turned  the  conversation  .  .  .  and  asked  me  what  I 
had  seen  since  my  arrival  in  the  city.  I  reported  a  visit  to  the 
Capitol,  then  in  process  of  construction,  whereupon  Mr.  Lincoln 
asked  what  the  workmen  were  doing.  I  told  him  that  they  were 
about  to  raise  the  statue  of  Liberty  to  the  dome,  and  that  on  the 
Senate  wing  they  were  preparing  pillars  for  installation. 

The  President  remarked  that  there  were  some  people  who 
thought  the  work  on  the  Capitol  ought  to  stop  on  account  of  the 
War,  people  who  begrudged  the  expenditure  and  the  detention  of 
the  workmen  from  the  army.  He  went  on  to  say  that  in  his  judg- 
ment the  finishing  of  the  Capitol  would  be  a  symbol  to  the  nation 
of  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 

"  If  people  see  the  Capitol  going  on,  it  is  a  sign  we  intend  the 
Union  shall  go  on.  " 

At  another  time  he  interrupted  his  inquiries  to  ask  if  Grant  had 
told  me  of  the  raid  made  upon  him — the  President — in  Washington. 
I  replied  that  I  had  not  heard  of  it. 

"  Well,  "  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "you  know  a  raid  in  Washington  is 
different  from  what  you  military  men  mean  by  a  raid.  With  you 
it  is  an  attack  by  the  enemy — the  capture  of  soldiers  and  supplies ; 
with  us  it  is  an  attack  by  our  friends  in  Congress  seeking  to  influence 
a  change  in  policy." 

"  A  company  of  Congressmen  came  to  me  to  protest  that 
Grant  ought  not  to  be  retained  as  a  commander  of  American 


(55^) 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT 


559 


v^. 


a>^ 


From  Grant,  Lincoln  and  the  Freedmen. 
A  CARD  OF  INTRODUCTION 


citizens.     I  asked  what  was  the  trouble.     They  said  he  was  not  fit 

to  command  such  men.     I  asked  why,  and  they  said  he  sometimes 

drank  too  much  and  was  unfit 

for  such  a  position.     I   then 

began    to    ask  them  if  they 

knew   what   he   drank,    what 

brand    of    whiskey    he    used, 

telHng   them    most    seriously 

that  I  wished  they  would  find 

out.      They    conferred    with 

each    other    and     concluded 

they    could    not    tell    what 

brand  he  used.     I  urged  them 

to  ascertain  and  let  me  know, 

for  if  it  made  fighting  generals 

like  Grant,  I  should  like  to  get  some  of  it  for  distribution  among 

some  of  the  other  generals." 

Grant,  Lincoln  and  the  Freedmen,  John  Eaton,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  page  87. 

Real  Distress  over  a  Few  "Niggers"  Troubled  with  "Jiggers" 

According  to  my  appointment,  I  returned  to  the  White  House 
next  morning  and  received  the  copy  of  my  report.  The  President 
left  me  in  no  doubt  as  to  the  satisfaction  with  which  he  had  read 
the  information  contained  therein.  He  spoke  at  some  length  about 
the  efforts  that  had  been  made  in  the  East  to  meet  the  Negro 
question;  how  he  had  urged  deportation  and  colonization,  and  of 
the  failure  of  such  efforts  to  solve  the  difficulty.  His  sympathy 
with  the  suffering  caused  by  some  of  the  mistakes  was  very  evident. 
He  told  me,  for  instance,  that  the  negroes  in  the  Cow  Island  settle- 
ment on  the  coast  of  Hayti  were  suffering  intensely  from  a  pest  of 
''jiggers,"  from  which  there  seemed  to  be  no  escape  or  protection. 
His  distress  was  as  keen  as  it  was  sincere,  and  I  have  often  thought 
of  it  as  an  illustration  of  his  kindness  of  heart,  which  found  no  detail 
too  insignificant  upon  which  to  expend  itself.  The  spectacle  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  conducting  the  affairs  of  the  nation 
in  the  midst  of  civil  war  and  genuinely  affected  by  the  discomfort 
occasioned  a  little  group  of  negroes  by  an  insect  no  bigger  than  a 
pin-head,  was  a  spectacle  that  has  stayed  by  me  all  my  life. 

Grant,  Lincoln  a,nd  the  Freedmen,  John  Eaton,  Ph.D.,  LL-D.,  page  91. 


56o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"He  Cares  for  Us  Soldiers" 

Severe  as  Lincoln  could  be  with  any  disposition  to  shirk  what 
he  considered  a  just  and  necessary  demand,  strenuously  as  he 
insisted  that  the  ranks  must  be  kept  full,  he  never  came  to  regard 
the  army  as  a  mere  machine,  never  forgot  the  individual  men  who 
made  it  up.  Indeed,  he  was  the  one  man  in  the  Government  who, 
from  first  to  last,  was  big  enough  to  use  both  his  head  and  his  heart. 
From  the  outset,  he  was  the  personal  friend  of  every  soldier  he  sent 
to  the  front,  and  somehow  every  man  seemed  to  know  it.  No  doubt 
it  was  on  Lincoln's  visits  to  the  camps  around  Washington,  in  the 
early  days  of  the  War,  that  the  body  of  the  soldiers  got  this  idea. 
They  never  forgot  his  friendly  hand-clasp,  his  hearty  "God  bless 
you,"  his  remonstrance  against  the  youth  of  some  fifteen-year-old 
boy  masquerading  as  twenty,  his  jocular  remarks  about  the  height 

of  some  soldier  towering  above  his  own  six  feet  four He 

inquired  into  every  phase  of  camp  life,  and  the  men  knew  it  and  said 
to  one  another, 

"  He  cares  for  us;  he  makes  us  fight,  but  he  cares.  " 

Reports  of  scores  of  cases  where  he  interfered  personally  to 
secure  some  favor  or  right  for  a  soldier  found  their  way  to  the  army 
and  gave  solid  foundation  to  this  impression  that  he  was  the  soldiers' 
friend.  From  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  the  first  troops  in  Wash- 
ington, in  April,  1861,  the  town  was  full  of  men,  all  of  them  wanting 
to  see  the  President.  At  first  they  were  gay  and  curious  merely, 
their  requests  trival ;  but  later  when  the  army  had  settled  down  to 
steady  fighting,  and  Bull  Run  and  the  Peninsula  and  Antietam  and 
Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville  had  cut  and  scarred  and  aged 
it,  the  soldiers  who  haunted  Washington  were  changed.  They 
stumped  about  on  crutches.  They  sat  pale  and  thin  in  the  parks, 
empty  sleeves  pinned  to  their  breasts ;  they  came  to  the  White 
House  begging  for  furloughs  to  see  dying  parents,  for  release  to 
support  a  suffering  family. 

No  man  will  ever  know  how  many  of  these  soldiers  Abraham 
Lincoln  helped.  Little  cards  are  constantly  turning  up  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  treasured  by  private  soldiers,  on  which  he 
had  written  some  brief  note  to  a  proper  authority,  intended  to 
help  a  man  out  of  a  difficulty.     Here  is  one : 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT 


561 


"The  Pittsburgh  boy,"  had  enhsted  at  seventeen.  He  had 
been  ill  with  a  long  fever.  He  wanted  a  furlough,  and  with  a 
curious  trust  that  anything  could  be  done  if  he  could  only  get  to  the 
President,  he  had  slipped  into  the  White  House  and  by  chance  met 
Lincoln  who  listened  to  his  story  and  gave  him  this  note. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  149. 

"No  Man's  Shoulders  Are  Broad  Enough" 

He  was  as  tender-hearted  as  a  girl.  He  asked  me  if  the  masses 
of  the  people  in  Ohio  held  him  in  any  way  personally  responsible  for 
the  loss  of  their  friends  in  the  army. 

"It  is  a  good  thing  for  individuals,"  he  said,  "that  there's  a 
government  to  shove  over  their  acts  upon.  No  man's  shoulders  are 
broad  enough  to  bear  what  must  be.  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby"  ).     Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  451. 

Four  Reprieves,  Judge  Holt  and  the  "Leg  Cases" 

In  the  earlier  years  of  the  War  all  the  death  penalties  of  courts- 
martial  had  to  be  sent  up  to  the  President,  as  commander-in-chief, 
for  his  approval.  When  Judge  Holt,  the  Judge-Advocate-General 
of  the  Army,  laid  the  first  case  before  the  President,  and  explained 
it,  he  replied : 

"Well,  I  will  keep  this  a  few  days  until  I  have  more  time  to 
look  up  the  testimony." 

That  seemed  quite  reasonable.  When  the  Judge  explained 
the  next  case,  Mr.  Lincoln  said : 

?6 


5(52  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"I  must  put  this  by  until  I  can  settle  in  my  mind  whether  this 
soldier  can  better  serve  the  country  dead  than  living." 

To  the  third,  he  answered : 

"  The  general  commanding  that  brigade  is  to  be  here  in  a  few 
days  to  consult  with  Stanton  and  myself  about  military  matters; 
I  will  wait  until  then,  and  talk  the  matter  over  with  him.  " 

Finally  there  was  a  very  flagrant  case  of  a  soldier,  who,  in  a 
crisis  of  battle,  demoralized  his  regiment  by  his  cowardice,  throwing 
down  his  gun  and  hiding  behind  a  friendly  stump.  When  tried  for 
his  cowardice  there  was  no  defense.  The  court-martial,  in  examin- 
ing his  antecedents,  found  that  he  had  neither  father  nor  mother 
living,  nor  wife  nor  child ;  that  he  was  unfit  to  wear  the  loyal 
uniform,  and  that  he  was  a  thief  who  stole  continually  from  his 
comrades. 

"Here,"  said  Judge  Holt,  "is  a  case  which  comes  exactly 
within  your  requirements.  He  does  not  deny  his  guilt;  he  will 
better  serve  his  country  dead  than  living,  as  he  has  no  relations  to 
mourn  for  him,  and  he  is  not  fit  to  be  in  the  ranks  of  patriots,  at 
anv  rate. " 

Mr.  Lincoln's  refuge  of  excuse  was  all  swept  away.  Judge  Holt 
expected,  of  course,  that  he  would  write  "approved"  on  the  paper; 
but  the  President,  running  his  long  fingers  through  his  hair,  as  he 
so  often  used  to  do  when  in  anxious  thought,  replied: 

"Well,  after  all,  Judge,  I  think  I  must  put  this  with  my  leg 

cases." 

"Leg  cases,"  said  Judge  Holt,  with  a  frown  at  this  supposed 
levity  of  the  President,  in  a  case  of  life  and  death.  "  What  do  you 
mean  by  'leg  cases,'  sir?" 

"Why,  why!"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  "do  you  see  those  papers 
crowded  into  those  pigeon-holes?  They  are  the  cases  that  you  call 
by  that  long  title,  'Cowardice  in  the  face  of  the  enemy,'  but  I  call 
them,  for  short,  my  '  leg  cases.'  But  I  put  it  to  you,  and  I  leave  it 
for  you  to  decide  for  yourself:  if  Almighty  God  gives  a  man  a 
cowardly  pair  of  legs — how  can  he  help  their  running  away  with 
him?" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.    Edited  by  Allen   Thorndike   Rice,  page 
341- 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  563 


"Got  Generals  Enough— Bring  Us  Some  Hard-Tack" 

Lincoln  particularly  liked  a  joke  at  the  expense  of  the  dignity 
of  some  high  civil  or  military  official.  One  day,  not  long  before  his 
second  inauguration,  he  asked  me  if  I  had  heard  about  Stanton's 
meeting  a  picket  on  Broad  River,  South  Carolina,  and  then  told  this 
story : 

"  General  Foster,  then  at-Port  Royal,  escorted  the  Secretary  up 
the  river,  taking  a  quartermaster's  tug.  Reaching  the  outer  lines 
on  the  river,  a  picket  roared  from  the  bank,  'Who  have  you  got  on 
board  that  tug?'  The  severe  and  dignified  answer  was,  'The  Sec- 
retary of  War  and  Major -General  Foster. '  Instantly  the  picket 
roared  back,  'We've  got  major-generals  enough  up  here — why  don't 
you  bring  us  up  some  hard-tack? " 

The  story  tickled  Lincoln  mightily,  and  he  told  it  until  it  was 
replaced  by  a  new  one. 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  291. 

"  Butler  or  No  Butler,  Here  Goes !  " 

A  Congressman  went  up  to  the  White  House  one  morning  on 
business,  and  saw  in  the  anteroom,  always  crow^ded  with  people  in 
those  days,  an  old  man  crouched  all  alone  in  a  corner,  crying  as  if 
his  heart  would  break.  As  such  a  sight  was  by  no  means  uncom- 
mon, the  Congressman  passed  into  the  President's  room,  transacted 
his  business,  and  went  away.  The  next  morning  he  was  obliged  to 
go  again  to  the  White  House,  and  he  saw  the  same  old  man  crying 
as  before  in  the  corner.     He  stopped  and  said  to  him : 

"What's  the  matter?" 

The  old  man  told  him  the  story  of  his  son — a  soldier  in  General 
Butler's  army — that  he  had  been  convicted  by  a  court-martial  of  an 
outrageous  crime  and  sentenced  to  be  shot  next  week,  and  his  Con- 
gressman was  so  convinced  of  the  man's  guilt  that  he  would  not 
intervene. 

"Well,.  .  .  .1  will  take  you  in,  after  I  have  finished  my 
business,  and  you  can  tell  Mr.  Lincoln  all  about  it.  " 

On  being  introduced  into  Mr.  Lincoln's  presence,  he  was 
accosted  with: 

"  Well,  my  old  friend,  what  can  I  do  for  you  to-day? " 

The  old  man  then  repeated  his  story  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  A  cloud 
of  sorrow  came  over  the  President's  face  as  he  said : 


564  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  can  do  nothing  for  you.  Listen  to  this 
telegram  received  from  General  Butler  yesterday : 

'President  Lincoln:  I  pray  you  not  to  interfere  with  the 
courts-martial  of  the  army.  You  will  destroy  all  discipline  among 
our  soldiers. — B.  F.  Butler."  ' 

Every  word  of  this  dispatch  seemed  like  the  death  knell  of 
despair  to  the  old  man's  newly  awakened  hopes.  Mr.  Lincoln 
watched  his  grief  for  a  minute,  and  then  exclaimed : 

"  By  jings,  Butler  or  no  Butler,  here  goes!'' — writing  a  few  words 
and  handing  them  to  the  old  man : 

"Job  Smith  is  not  to  be  shot  until  further  orders  from  me. 

"Abraham  Lincoln." 

"Why,"  said  the  old  man,  "I  thought  it  was  to  be  a  pardon; 
but  you  say  'not  to  be  shot  till  further  orders,'  and  you  may  order 
him  shot  next  week." 

Mr.  Lincoln  smiled  at  the  old  man's  fears  and  replied: 

"Well,  my  old  friend,  I  see  you  are  not  very  well  acquainted 
with  me.  If  your  son  never  looks  on  death  till  further  orders  come 
from  me  to  shoot  him,  he  will  live  to  be  a  great  deal  older  than 
Methuselah." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.     Edited    by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page 
343- 

Lincoln's  Amnesty  Proclamation 

Congress  met  at  the  usual  time,  in  the  last  month  of  1863  ;  and 
the  President  sent  in  his  annual  message,  in  which  he  offered  another 
inducement  to  the  Rebels  to  lay  down  their  arms  and  return  to  their 
allegiance  to  the  United  States.  This  is  called  the  Proclamation  of 
Amnesty  (or  pardon),  and  you  shall  have  the  President's  own  words: 

"I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  do 
proclaim,  declare,  and  make  known  to  all  persons  who  have  directly 
or  by  implication  participated  in  the  existing  Rebellion,  except  as 
hereinafter  excepted,  that  a  full  pardon  is  hereby  granted  to  them 
and  each  of  them,  with  restoration  of  all  rights  of  property,  except 
as  to  slaves,  and  in  property  cases  where  rights  of  third  parties  shall 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  565 

have  intervened,  and  upon  the  condition  that  every  such  person 
shall  take  and  subscribe  an  oath  and  thenceforward  keep  and  main- 
tain said  oath  inviolate, — an  oath  which  shall  be  registered  for 
permanent  preservation,  and  shall  be  of  the  tenor  and  effect  follow- 
ing, to  wit : 

"  'I, ,  do  solemnly  swear,  in  presence  of  Almighty  God, 

that  I  will  faithfully  support,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  the  Union  of  the  States  thereunder,  and 
that  I  will  in  like  manner  abide  by  and  faithfully  support  all  acts  of 
Congress  passed  during  the  existing  Rebellion  with  reference  to 
slaves  so  long  and  so  far  as  not  repealed,  modified,  or  held  void,  by 
Congress  or  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court ;  and  that  I  will  in 
like  manner  abide  by  and  faithfully  support  all  proclamations  of  the- 
President  made  during  the  existing  Rebellion,  having  reference  to 
slaves,  so  long  and  so  far  as  not  modified  or  declared  void  by  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court.     So  help  me  God.'  " 

[Civil,  military  and  naval  officers  under  the  so-called  Confed- 
erate government,  especially  those  who  left  positions  of  honor  and 
trust  to  aid  and  abet  the  Rebellion  were  not  included  in  the  general 
terms  of  this  proclamation.] 

Thus,  you  see  that  although  the  enemies  of  the  good  President 
accused  him  of  prolonging  the  War  for  his  own  purposes, — and  some 
of  them  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  might  have  had  peace  long 
before  if  he  had  desired  it, — this  was  so  far  from  being  true  that  he 
was  constantly  planning  every  means  he  could  think  of  to  induce 
the  Rebels  to  cease  fighting  before  they  were  conquered  and  com- 
pelled to  surrender. 

I  have  told  you  of  the  various  ways  in  which  he  tried  to  show 
the  Southern  people  that  they  could  gain  nothing  by  the  War,  but  in 
the  end  must  lose  everything,  slaves  and  all.  Now,  as  a  last  resort, 
he  told  them  that  if  they  would  only  take  this  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  keep  it,  he  would  pardon 
them.  In  other  words,  he  would  forget  that  they  had  ever  been 
Rebels, — for  amnesty  comes  from  a  Greek  word  w^hich  means  to 
j  or  get. 

The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  M.  Louiee  Putnam,  page  343. 


566  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"  Think  of  Going  into  Eternity  with  the  Blood  of  That  Poor  Young  Man 

on  My  Skirts" 

A  personal  friend  of  President  Lincoln  is  authority  for  this : 

"  I  called  on  him  one  day.     He  had  just  written  a  pardon  for  a 

young  man  who  had  been  sentenced  to  be  shot  for  sleeping  at  his 

post.     He  remarked  as  he  read  it  to  me : 

"  'I  could  not  think  of  going  into  eternity  with  the  blood  of 

that  poor  young  man  on  my  skirts. '     Then  he  added : 

'It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  a  boy,  raised  on  the  farm, 

probably  in  the  habit  of  going  to  bed  at  dark,  should,  when  required 

to  watch,  fall  asleep ;  and  I  cannot  consent  to  shooting  him  for  such 

an  act.'  " 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yams  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  416. 

Burning  of  the  White  House  Stables  and  Loss  of  the  Boys'  Ponies 

Wednesday  night,  February  loth  (1864)  was  an  exciting  one 
at  the  White  House,  the  stables  belonging  to  the  mansion  being 
burned  to  the  ground.  The  loss  most  severely  felt  was  of  the  two 
ponies,  one  of  which  had  belonged  to  Willie  Lincoln,  the  President's 
second  son,  who  died  in  1862,  and  the  other  to  Tad,  the  youngest, 

and  pet  of  his  father,  who  in 
his  infancy  nicknamed  him 
"Tadpole,"  subsequently 
abbreviated  to  "  Taddie,  "  and 
then  "Tad."  His  real  name 
was  Thomas,  named  for  the 
father  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

Upon  Tad's  learning 
of  the  loss,  he  threw  him- 
self at  full  length  upon 
the  floor,  and  could  not  be  comforted.  The  only  allusion  I 
ever  heard  the  President  make  to  Willie  was  on  this  occasion,  in 
connection  with  the  loss  of  his  pony.  John  Hay,  the  assistant 
private  secretary,  told  me  that  he  was  rarely  known  to  speak  of  his 
lost  son. 

Six  Months  at  the  While  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  44. 

"I  Will  Be  Far  Happier  Than  I  Have  Ever  Been  Here" 

In  1864,  when  one  of  my  soldiers  was  unjustly  sentenced  and 
his  gray-haired  mother  pleaded  with  me  to  use  what  influence  I 


LEADING  EVENTS  IN  1863 

Union  victory  at  Murfreesboro, 

Tenn Dec.  31  to  Jan.  2 

Emancipation  Proclamation Jan.  1 

Confederate   victory   at    Chancellorsville, 

Va., May  2-3 

Union  victory  at  Gettysburg,  Pa July  1-3 

Grant  captures  Vicksburg,  Miss July  4 

Draft  riots  in  New  York July  13-16 

Confederate  victory   at    Chickamauga, 

Ga Sept.  19-20 

Union  victory  at  Lookout  Mountain, 

Tenn Nov.  24-25 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  567 

would  have  with  the  President,  I  went  to  Washington  and  told  the 
story  to  the  President.  He  said  he  had  heard  something  about  it 
from  Mr.  Stanton,  and  he  said  he  would  investigate  the  matter,  and 
he  did  afterward  decide  that  the  man  should  not  be  put  to  death. 
At  the  close  of  that  interview  I  said  to  the  President : 
"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  is  it  not  a  most  exhausting 
thing  to  sit  here  hearing  all  these  appeals  and  have  all  of  this 
business  on  your  hands?" 

He  laid  his  head  on  his  hand,  and,  in  a  somewhat  wearied 
manner,  said,  with  a  deep  sigh: 

"Yes,  yes;  no  man  ought  to  be  ambitious  to  be  President  of 
the  United  States;  and,"  said  he,  "when  this  war  is  over— and  that 
won't  be  very  long — I  tell  my  Tad  that  we  will  go  back  to  the  farm, 
where  I  was  happier  as  a  boy  when  I  dug  potatoes  at  twenty-five 
cents  a  day-than  I  am  now ;  I  tell  him  I  will  buy  him  a  mule  and  a 
pony  and  he  shall  have  a  little  cart  and  he  shall  make  a  little  garden 
in  a  field  all  his  own."  And  the  President's  face  beamed  as  he  arose 
from  his  chair  in  the  delight  of  excitement  as  he  said : 

"  Yes,  I  will  be  far  happier  than  I  have  ever  been  here. " 

Personal  Glimpses  of  Celebrated  Men  and  Women,  Russell  H,  Conwell,  page  356, 

"A  Little  More  Light  and  a  Little  Less  Noise" 

Wednesday,  March  2nd  (1864),  I  had  an  unusually  long  and 

interesting  sitting  from  the  President The   news  had 

been  recently  received  of  the  disaster  under  General  Seymour  in 
Florida.  Many  newspapers  openly  charged  the  President  with 
having  sent  the  expedition  with  primary  reference  to  restoring  the 
State  in  season  to  secure  its  vote  at  the  forthcoming  Baltimore 
Convention.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  deeply  wounded  by  these  charges.  . 
.  ...  A  few  days  afterward  an  editorial  appeared  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  which  was  known  not  to  favor  Lincoln's  renomina- 
tion,  entirely  exonerating  him  from  blame.  I  took  the  article  to 
him  in  his  study,  and  he  expressed  much  gratification  at  its 
candor.  In  connection  with  newspaper  attacks  he  told,  during  the 
sitting,  this  story : 

"  A  traveler  on  the  frontier  found  himself  out  of  his  reckoning 
one  night  in  a  most  inhospitable  region.  A  terrific  thunderstorm 
came  up,  to  add  to  his  trouble.     He  floundered  along  until  at 


\ 


568  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

length  his  horse  gave  out.  The  Hghtning  afforded  him  the  only- 
clew  to  his  way,  but  the  peals  of  thunder  were  frightful.  One  bolt, 
which  seemed  to  crush  the  earth  beneath  him,  brought  him  to  his 
knees.  By  no  means  a  praying  man,  his  petition  was  short  and  to 
the  point : 

"  'O  Lord,  if  it's  all  the  same  to  you,  give  us  a  little  more  light 
and  a  little  less  noise. '" 

Six  Months  in  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  48. 

First  Meeting  of  Lincoln  and  Grant 

The  first  time  the  two  men  saw  each  other  was  about  one 
o'clock  on  the  9th  of  March,  1864,  when  General  Grant  called  upon 
the  President  at  the  White  House  to  receive  the  commission  con- 
stituting him  Lieutenant-Gen eral  of  the  armies.  The  General  had 
arrived  in  Washington  from  the  West  the  day  before,  and  was  on 
his  way  to  establish  his  headquarters  in  Virginia.  The  interview 
took  place  in  the  Cabinet  room.  There  were  present,  besides  the 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  General  Halleck,  a  member  of  Congress, 
two  of  General  Grant's  stafT-officers,  his  eldest  son,  Frederick  D, 
Grant,  and  the  President's  private  secretary.  Lincoln,  in  handing 
the  General  his  commission,  read  with  much  feeling  a  few  words 
which  he  had  written  for  the  occasion,  ending  with  the  remark. 

"  As  the  country  herein  trusts  you,  so,  under  God,  it  will  sustain 
you.  I  scarcely  need  add  that,  with  what  I  here  speak  for  the 
nation,  goes  my  own  hearty  personal  concurrence. " 

The  General  took  the  commission  very  mu^h  as  a  graduate 
steps  up  and  takes  his  diploma  from  the  president  of  his  college. 
He  had  written  a  brief  reply  on  a  sheet  of  paper  which  he  drew  from 
his  pocket  and  read.     It  closed  as  follows : 

"  I  feel  the  full  weight  of  the  responsibilities  now  devolving 
upon  me ;  and  I  know  that  if  they  are  met  it  will  be  due  to  those 
armies,  and  above  all  to  the  favor  of  that  Providence  which  leads 
both  nations  and  men.  " 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  The  Century  Magazine ,  Vol.  VIII,  October,  1885,  page  940. 

The  Military  Situation  and  the  Monkey  with  Too  Much  Tail 

Just  after  receiving  my  commission  as  Lieutenant-General,  the 
President  called  me  aside  to  speak  to  me  privately.  After  a  brief 
reference  to  the  military  situation,  he  said  he  thought  he  could 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT 


569 


illustrate  what  he  wanted  to  say  by  a  story,  which  he  related  as 
follows : 

"  At  one  time  there  was  a  great  war  among  the  animals,  and  one 
side  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  a  commander  who  had  sufficient 
confidence  in  himself.  Finally,  they  found  a  monkey,  by  the  name 
of  Jocko,  who  said  that  he  thought  he  could  command  their  army 
if  his  tail  could  be  made  a  little  longer.  So  they  got  more  tail  and 
spliced  it  on  to  his  caudal  appendage.  He  looked  at  it  admiringly, 
and  then  thought  he  ought  to  have  a  little  more  still.  This  was 
added,  and  again  he  called  for  more.  The  splicing  process  was  re- 
peated many  times,  until  they  had  coiled  Jocko's  tail  around  the 
room,  filling  all  the  space.  Still  he  called  for  more  tail,  there  being 
no  other  place  to  coil  it, 
they  began  wrapping 
it  around  his  shoul- 
ders. He  continued 
his  call  for  more,  and 
they  kept  on  winding 
the  additional  tail 
about  him  until  its 
weight  brok«  him 
down." 

I  saw  the  point, 
and,  rising  from  my 
chair,  replied : 

"Mr.  President,  I 
will  not  call  for  more 
assistance  unless  I 
find  it  impossible  to  do 
with  what  I  already 
have." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, Ulysses  S.  Grant.  Edited  by 
Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  i. 


From    Abraham   Lincoln:   A    History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and 
John  Hay. 

GENERAL  GRANT 


A  Visit  to  City  Point 
On  March  20,  1864, 

,■*         r^  1      ■  •  i      J  From  a  War-time  Photograph. 

the  General   invited 

the  President  to  visit  him  at  City  Point.     The  invitation  wa§  ac 


570  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

cepted  the  next  day,  and  the  President  arrived  at  the  headquar- 
ters  of   the    armies  on  the    22nd,   accompanied  by  Mrs.   Lincoln 

and  their  youngest  son,  Tad Upon  the  arrival  of  the 

steamboat  [the  River  Queen]  at  the  wharf  at  City  Point,  General 
Grant  and  several  members  of  his  staff  went  aboard  to  welcome  the 
Presidential  party.  The  President  gave  each  one  a  hearty  greet- 
ing, and  in  his  frank  and  cordial  way  said  many  complimentary 
things  about  the  hard  work  that  had  been  done  during  the  long 
winter's  siege,  and  how  fully  the  country  appreciated  it.  When 
asked  how  he  was,  he  said : 

"  I  am  not  feeling  very  well.  I  got  pretty  badly  shaken  up  on 
the  bay  coming  down,  and  am  not  altogether  over  it  yet.  " 

"  Let  me  send  for  a  bottle  of  champagne  for  you,  Mr.  President " 
said  a  staff-ofhcer ;  "that's  the  best  remedy  I  know  of  for  sea- 
sickness. " 

"  No,  no,  my  young  friend,  "  replied  the  President,  "  I've  seen 
many  a  man  in  my  time  seasick  ashore  from  drinking  that  very 
article. " 

That  was  the  last  time  any  one  screwed  up  sufficient  courage 
to  offer  him  wine. 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.  VIII,  October,  1885,  page  942. 

England  and  the  Sangamon  Barber 

Upon  the  return  to  headquarters  at  City  Point,  he  sat  for 
awhile  by  the  camp-fire;  and  as  the  smoke  curled  about  his  head 
during  certain  shiftings  of  the  wind,  and  he  brushed  it  away  from 
time  to  time  by  waving  his  hand  in  front  of  his  face,  he  entertained 
the  General -in-chief  and  several  members  of  his  staff  by  talking  in  a 
most  interesting  manner  about  public  affairs,  and  illustrating  the 
subjects  mentioned  with  his  incomparable  anecdotes. 

At  first  his  manner  was  grave  and  his  language  much  more 
serious  than  usual.  .  .  .  After  awhile  he  spoke  in  a  less  serious 
vein,  and  said: 

"  England  will  live  to  regret  her  inimical  attitude  toward  us. 
After  the  collapse  of  the  RebeUion,  John  Bull  will  find  that  he  has 
injured  himself  much  more  seriously  than  us.  His  action  reminds 
me  of  a  barber  in  Sangamon  County  in  my  State.  He  had  just 
gone  to  bed  when  a  stranger  came  along  and  said  he  must  be  shaved ; 
that  he  had  a  four  days'  beard  on  his  face,  and  was  going  to  take  a 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  571 

girl  to  a  ball,  and  that  beard  must  come  off.  Well,  the  barber  got 
up  reluctantly  and  dressed,  and  seated  the  man  in  a  chair  with  a 
back  so  low  that  every  time  he  bore  dow^n  on  him  he  came  near 
dislocating  the  victim's  neck.  He  began  by  lathering  his  face, 
including  his  nose,  eyes  and  ears,  stropped  his  razor  on  his  boot, 
and"  then  made  a  drive  at  the  man's  countenance  as  if  he  had 
practised  mowing  in  a  stubble-field.  He  cut  a  bold  swath  across 
the  right  cheek,  carrying  away  the  beard,  a  pimple,  and  two  warts. 
The  man  in  the  chair  ventured  to  remark : 

"'You  appear  to  make  everything  level  as  you  go.' 
"'Yes,'  said  the  barber,  'and  if  this  handle  don't  break,  I  guess 
I'll  get  away  with  most  of  what's  there.' 

"The  man's  cheeks  were  so  hollow  that  the  barber  couldn't  get 
down  into  the  valleys  with  the  razor,  and  the  ingenious  idea  occurred 
to  him  to  stick  his  fingers  in  the  man's  mouth  and  press  out  the 
cheeks.  Finally  he  cut  clear  through  the  cheek  and  into  his  own 
fingers.  He  pulled  the  finger  out  of  the  man's  mouth,  snapped 
the  blood  off  it,  glared  at  him,  and  cried : 

"  'There,  you  lantern -jawed  cuss,  you've  made  me  cut  my  finger ! ' 
"  And  so  England  will  discover  that  she  has  got  the  South  into 
a  pretty  bad  scrape  by  trying  to  administer  to  her,  and  in  the  end 
she  will  find  that  she  has  only  cut  her  own  finger.  " 

Campaigning  with  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  page  406. 

"Mind,  That  Old  Grudge  Stands!" 

After  the  laugh  that  followed  this  story  had  exhausted  itself, 
General  Grant  asked: 

"  Mr.  President,  did  you  at  any  time  doubt  the  final  success  of 
the  cause?" 

"Never  for  a  moment,"  was  the  prompt  and  emphatic  reply 
as  Mr.  Lincoln  leaned  forward  in  his  camp-chair  and  enforced  his 
words  by  a  vigorous  gesture  of  his  right  hand. 

"  Mr.  Seward,  when  he  visited  me  last  summer,  gave  a  very 
interesting  accovmt  of  the  complications  and  embarrassments 
arising  from  the  Mason  and  Slidell  affair,  when  those  commission- 
ers were  captured  on  board  the  English  vessel  Trent, ' '  remarked 
General  Grant. 

"Yes,"  said  the  President;  "Seward  studied  up  all  the  works 
ever  written  on  international  law,  and  came  to  Cabinet  meetings 


572  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


loaded  to  the  muzzle  with  the  subject.  We  gave  due  consideration 
to  the  case,  but  at  that  critical  period  of  the  War  it  was  soon  decided 
to  deliver  up  the  prisoners.  It  was  a  pretty  bitter  pill  to  swallow, 
but  I  contented  myself  with  believing  that  England's  triumph  in 
the  matter  would  be  short-lived,  and  that  after  ending  our  War 
successfully  we  would  be  so  powerful  that  we  could  call  her  to 
account  for  all  the  embarrassments  she  had  inflicted  upon  us.  I  felt 
a  good  deal  like  the  sick  man  in  Illinois  who  was  told  he  probably 
hadn't  many  days  longer  to  live  and  he  ought  to  make  peace  with 
any  enemies  he  might  have.  He  said  the  man  he  hated  worst  of 
all  was  a  fellow  named  Brown,  in  the  next  village,  and  he  guessed 
he  had  better  begin  on  him.  So  Brown  was  sent  for,  and  when  he 
came  the  sick  man  began  to  say,  in  a  voice  as  meek  as  Moses's, 
that  he  wanted  to  die  at  peace  with  all  his  fellow -creatures,  and  he 
hoped  he  and  Brown  could  now  shake  hands  and  bury  all  their 
enmity.  The  scene  was  becoming  altogether  too  pathetic  for 
Brown,  who  had  to  get  out  his  handkerchief  and  wipe  the  gathering 
tears  from  his  eyes.  It  wasn't  long  before  he  melted  and  gave  his 
hand  to  his  neighbor,  and  they  had  a  regular  love-feast  of  for- 
giveness. After  a  parting  that  would  have  softened  the  heart  of 
a  grindstone.  Brown  had  about  reached  the  room  door,  when  the 
sick  man  rose  up  on  his  elbow  and  called  out  to  him: 

"  'But  see  here.  Brown,  if  I  should  happen  to  get  well,  mind, 
that  old  grudge  stands!' 

"So  I  thought  that  if  this  nation  should  happen  to  get  well  we 
might  want  that  old  grudge  against  England  to  stand.  " 

Campaigning  with  Grant,  Horace  Porter,  page  406. 

"I  Will  Make  a  Fizzle,  Anyhow" 

Upon  one  occasion,  when  the  President  was  at  my  headquar- 
ters at  City  Point,  I  took  him  to  see  the  work  that  had  been  done  on 
the  Dutch  Gap  Canal.  After  taking  him  around  and  showing  him 
all  the  points  of  interest,  explaining  how,  in  blowing  up  one  portion 
of  the  work  that  was  being  excavated,  the  explosion  had  thrown 
the  material  back  into,  and  filled  up,  a  part  already  completed,  he 
turned  to  me  and  said: 

"  Grant,  do  you  know  what  this  reminds  me  of.?  Out  in  Spring- 
field, Illinois,  there  was  a   blacksmith   named  Blank.      One   day, 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  573 

when  he  did  not  have  much  to  do,  he  took  a  piece  of  soft  iron 
that  had  been  in  his  shop  for  some  time,  and  for  which  he  had  no 
special  use,  and,  starting  up  his  fire,  began  to  heat  it.  When  he 
got  it  hot  he  carried  it  to  the  anvil  and  began  to  hammer  it,  rather 
thinking  he  would  weld  it  into  an  agricultural  implement.  He 
pounded  away  for  some  time  until  he  got  it  fashioned  into  some 
shape,  when  he  discovered  that  the  iron  would  not  hold  out  to  com- 
plete the  implement  he  had  in  mind. 

"  He  then  put  it  back  into  the  forge,  heated  it  up  again,  and 
recommenced  hammering,  with  an  ill-defined  notion  that  he  would 
make  a  claw-hammer,  but  after  a  time  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  was  more  iron  there  than  was  needed  to  form  a  hammer. 
Again  he  heated  it,  and  thought  he  would  make  an  ax.  After 
hammering  and  welding  it  into  shape,  knocking  the  oxidized  iron 
off  in  flakes,  he  concluded  there  was  not  enough  of  the  iron  left  to 
make  an  ax  that  would  be  of  any  use.  He  was  now  getting  tired  and 
a  little  disgusted  at  the  results  of  his  various  essays.  So  he  filled 
his  forge  full  of  coal,  and  after  placing  the  iron  in  the  center  of  the 
heap,  he  took  the  bellows  and  worked  up  a  tremendous  blast,  bring- 
ing the  iron  to  a  white  heat.  Then  with  his  tongs  he  lifted  it  from 
the  bed  of  coals,  and  thrusting  it  into  a  tub  of  water  near  by,  ex- 
claimed with  an  oath, 

"  '  Well,  if  I  can't  make  anything  else  of  you,  I  will  make  a  fizzle, 
anyhow."  ' 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ulysses  S.  Grant.      Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  2. 

"Is  This  Bloody  War  Ever  to  End?" 

The  morning  after  the  bloody  battle  of  the  Wilderness,  I  saw 
him  walk  up  and  down  the  Executive  Chamber,  his  long  arms 
behind  his  back,  his  dark  features  contracted  still  more  with  gloom ; 
and  as  he  looked  up,  I  thought  his  face  the  saddest  one  I  had  ever 
seen.     He  exclaimed: 

"Why  do  we  suffer  reverses  after  reverses!  Could  we  have 
avoided  this  terrible,  bloody  war!  Was  it  not  forced  upon  us!  Is 
it  ever  to  end!" 

But  he  quickly  recovered,  and  told 'me  the  sad  aggregate  of 
those  days  of  bloodshed.  Of  course  it  is  perfectly  well  known  that 
the  battle  of  the  Wilderness,  then  claimed  as  a  drawn  battle,  was, 
on  the  contrary,  a  bloody  reverse  to  our  arms,  our  loss  in  killed  and 


574  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

wounded  alone  being  fifteen  thousand  more  than  the  Confederates'. 
Hope  beamed  on  his  face  as  he  said  : 

"  Grant  will  not  fail  us  now ;  he  says  he  'will  fight  it  out  on  that 
line,'  and  this  is  now  the  hope  of  our  country.  " 

An  hour  afterward,  he  was  telling  story  after  story  to  con- 
gressional visitors  at  the  White  House,  to  hide  his  saddened  heart 
from  their  keen  and  anxious  scrutiny. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  337. 

"How  Unfortunate  !  Those  Mules  Cost  Us  $200  Apiece 

The  generals  of  the  army  were  not  always  pleased  with  his 
calling  them  so  familiarly,  "my  generals, "  as  I  can  illustrate  by  an 
incident. 

Walking  up  Pennsylvania  Avenue  one  evening  with  several 
other  members  (of  Congress),  on  the  road  to  the  White  House,  a 
courier  who  had  just  dashed  across  the  Long  Bridge,  hailed  us,  and 
told  us  the  news  he  was  taking  to  the  War  Department.  It  seems 
that  in  the  gray  of  that  very  morning  a  Rebel  raid  in  Falls  Church, 
a  little  hamlet  a  dozen  miles  away,  had  surprised  and  captured  a 
brigadier-general,  and  twelve  army  mules,  and  had  got  into  the 
Rebel  lines  before  they  could  be  recaptured.  As  we  were  going  to 
the  Executive  Chamber,  we  thought  we  would  tell  Mr.  Lincoln  the 
news  in  advance ;  but  he  said,  instantly,  on  hearing  it : 

"  How  unfortunate !  I  can  fill  his  place  with  one  of  my  generals 
in  five  minutes,  but  those  mules  cost  us  $200  apiece. " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Schuyler  Colfax.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  339. 

"There  Won't  Be  Any  Fun  till  I  Get  There!" 

I  was  designated  by  the  Secretary  of  War  as  a  sort  of  special 
escort  to  accompany  the  President  from  Washington  to  Gettysburg 
upon  the  occasion  of  the  first  anniversary  of  the  battle  at  that  place. 
At  the  appointed  time  I  went  to  the  White  House,  where  I  found 
the  President's  carriage  at  the  door  to  take  him  to  the  station ;  but 
he  was  not  ready.  When  he  appeared  it  was  rather  late,  and  I 
remarked  that  he  had  no  time  to  lose  in  going  to  the  train. 

"  Well,  "  said  he,  "I  feel  about  that  as  the  convict  in  one  of  our 
Illinois  towns  felt  when  he  was  going  to  the  gallows.  As  he  passed 
along  the  road  in  custody  of  the  sheriff,  the  people,  eager  to  see  the 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  575 

execution,  kept  crowding  and  pushing  past  him.  At  last  he  called 
out: 

"  'Boys,  you  needn't  be  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  ahead,  there 
won't  he  any  fun  till  I  get  there.' 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  402. 

The  President's  Narrow  Escape 

One  night,  when  there  were  indications  that  an  attack  would 
be  made,  I  was  on  guard  at  the  War  Department.  At  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  I  heard  loud  cries  in  the  street,  sounding  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  department.  My  first  impression  was  that  Early's 
raiders  had  broken  in  and  were  coming  to  burn  and  pillage.  .  .  . 
On  opening  the  door  upon  the  street,  a  large  herd  of  beef  cattle  was 
seen  wending  its  way  to  the  commissary's  corral  and  the  herders  were 
making  the  outcry.  These  cattle  had  been  pastured  some  miles  out 
in  Maryland,  and  narrowly  escaped  being  captured  by  Early.      .    . 

There  had  been  no  stampede  in  Washington.  People  did  not 
seem  to  think  there  was  much  danger  of  a  catastrophe.  The 
Confederates  left  some  of  the  forts ;  and  two  or  three  houses  under 
the  guns  of  Fort  Stevens,  on  the  turnpike-road  to  Brookville, 
Maryland,  were  battered  down,  to  dislodge  some  of  the  enemy's 
sharp-shooters  who  found  shelter  there  while  trying  to  pick  off  our 
gunners. 

It  was  related  of  President  Lincoln  that  he  rode  out  to  Fort 
Stevens  while  the  skirmishing  was  going  on,  and,  heedless  of  danger, 
mounted  the  parapet  to  get  a  good  view.  While  standing  there,  his 
tall  frame  presenting  a  -prominent  target,  a  bullet  passed  between 
him  and  a  young  lady  who  was  standing  by  his  side.  ....  He 
was  then  induced  to  descend  under  cover. 

Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War,  Brevet  Major-General  E.  D.  Townsend,  page  109 

"I  Will  Keep  My  Part  of  the  Bargain" 

Tad,  as  he  was  universally  called,  almost  always  accompanied 

his  father  upon  the  various  excursions  down  the  Potomac 

Once  on  the  way  to  Fortress  Monroe,  he  became  very  troublesome. 
The  President  was  much  engaged  in  conversation  with  the  party 
who  accompanied  him,  and  he  at  length  said : 

"  Tad,  if  you  will  be  a  good  boy,  and  not  disturb  me  any  more 
till  we  get  to  Fortress  Monroe,  I  will  give  you  a  dollar. " 


576  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


The  hope  of  reward  was  effectual  for  a  while  in  securing  silence, 
but,  boy-like.  Tad  soon  forgot  his  promise,  and  was  as  noisy  as  ever. 
Upon  reaching  their  destination,  however,  he  said  very  promptly: 

"  Father,  I  want  my  dollar.  " 

Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  him  with  the  inquiry : 

"Tad,  do  you  think  you  have  earned  it?" 

"Yes, "  was  the  sturdy  reply. 

Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  half  reproachfully  for  an  instant, 
and  then  taking  from  his  pocket  a  dollar  note,  he  said : 

"  Well,  my  son,  at  any  rate  I  will  keep  my  part  of  the  bargain." 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  93. 

"Would  to  God  This  Dinner  Were  with  Our  Poor  Prisoners  in 

Andersonville!" 

When  we  reached  the  left  of  the  line  we  turned  off  toward  the 
hospitals,  which  were  quite  extensive  and  kept  in  most  admirable 
order  by  my  medical  director.  Surgeon  McCormack. 

The  President  passed  through  all  the  wards,  stopping  and 
speaking  very  kindly  to  some  of  the  poor  fellows  as  they  lay  on  their 
cots,  and  occasionally  administered  a  few  words  of  commendation 
to  the  ward  master. 

Sometimes  when  reaching  a  patient  who  showed  much  suffering 
the  President's  eyes  would  glisten  with  tears.  The  effect  of  his 
presence  upon  these  sick  men  was  wonderful,  and  his  visit  did  great 
good,  for  there  was  no  medicine  which  was  equal  to  the  cheerfulness 
which  his  visit  so  largely  inspired. 

I  accompanied  him  to  Fort  Monroe,  and  afterward  to  Fort 
Wool,  which  is  on  the  middle  ground  between  the  channels  at  Hamp- 
ton Roads.  As  we  sat  at  dinner,  before  we  took  the  boat  for  Wash- 
ington, his  mind  seemed  to  be  preoccupied,  and  he  hardly  did 
justice  to  the  best  dinner  our  resources  could  provide  for  him. 
I  said,  "  I  hope  you  are  not  unwell;  you  do  not  eat,  Mr.  President." 
"  I  am  well  enough,  "  was  the  reply,  "but  would  to  God  this  dinner 
or  provisions  like  it  were  with  our  poor  prisoners  in  Andersonville. " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Benjamin  F.  Butler.  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  148. 

"Brother  Greeley"  as  Peace  Commissioner 

One  of  the  cleverest  minor  political  moves  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
ever  made  was  an  appointment  he  once  gave  Horace  Greeley.  Mr. 
Greeley  never  approved  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  manner  of  conducting  the 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  577 

War,  and  he  sometimes  abused  the  President  roundly  for  his  delibera- 
tion. As  the  War  went  on,  Greeley  grew  more  and  more  irritable, 
because  the  Administration  did  not  make  peace  on  some  terms. 
Finally,  in  July,  1864,  he  received  a  letter  from  a  pretended  agent 
of  the  Confederate  authorities  in  Canada,  saying : 

"  I  am  authorized  to  state  to  you  for  your  use  only,  not  the 
public,  that  two  ambassadors  of  Davis  and  Company  are  now  in 
Canada  with  full  and  complete  powers  for  a  peace,  and  Mr.  Sanders 
requests  that  you  come  on  immediately  to  me  at  Cataract  House  to 
have  a  private  interview;  or,  if  you  will  send  the  President's  pro- 
tection for  him  and  two  friends,  they  will  come  on  and  meet  you. 
He  says  the  whole  matter  can  be  consummated  by  me,  them,  and 
President  Lincoln. " 

This  letter  was  followed  the  next  day  by  a  telegram,  saying: 
"  Will  you  come  here?     Parties  have  full  power.  " 

Upon  receiving  this  letter,  Mr.  Greeley  wrote  to  President 
Lincoln,  more  or  less  in  the  strain  of  the  articles  that  he  had  pub- 
lished in  the  Tribune.  He  complained  bitterly  of  the  way  the 
business  of  the  Government  was  managed  in  the  great  crisis,  and 

told  the  President  that  now  there  was  a  way  open  to  peace 

Mr.  Lincoln  immediately  responded  by  asking  Mr.  Greeley  to  be 
himself  the  representative  and  to  go  to  Niagara  Falls. 

"If  you  can  find  any  person  anywhere,"  the  President  wrote, 
"  professing  to  have  any  proposition  of  Jefferson  Davis,  in  writing, 
for  peace,  embracing  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  abandonment 
of  slavery,  whatever  else  it  embraces,  say  to  him  he  may  come  to  me 
with  you,  and  that  if  he  really  brings  such  proposition  he  shall  at 
the  least  have  safe  conduct  with  the  paper  (and  without  publicity, 
if  he  chooses)  to  the  point  where  you  shall  have  meet  him.  The 
same,  if  there  be  two  or  more  persons." 

Mr.  Greeley  went  to  Niagara,  but  his  mission  ended  in  nothing 
except  that  the  poor  man,  led  astray  by  too  great  confidence,  failed 
in  his  undertaking,  and  was  almost  universally  laughed  at.  I  saw 
the  President  not  long  after  that,  and  he  said,  with  a  funny  twinkle 
in  his  eye: 

"  I  sent  Brother  Greeley  a  commission,  I  guess  I  am  about 
even  with  him  now." 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War.  Charles  A.  Dana,  page  178. 
37 


57^  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLX 

Lincoln's  Sublime  Confidence  in  Grant 

Upon  the  whole,  the  summer  of  1864  was  the  most  discouraging 
period  of  the  war.  Battle  had  followed  upon  battle ;  our  soldiers 
were  laying  down  their  lives  in  unnumbered  thousands,  and  still 
resistance  was  strong.  Vigorous  leaders  in  the  South  were  resolute, 
and  their  people  responded  to  them  with  remarkable  vigor  and 
determination.  Disaffection  had  grown  in  the  North.  Confederate 
agencies  were  at  work  on  Canadian  soil;  Lincoln's  own  friends  had 
begun  to  criticise  him, — sometimes  for  being  too  slow,  sometimes 
for  being  too  fast.  The  disaffection  began  to  organize.  True,  he 
had  been  renominated,  but  there  was  an  effort  making  in  some 
quarters  to  find  some  one  else  to  run,  as  it  was  declared,  to  save  the 

Union.     Of  all  this  the  President  spoke  freely 

To  me,  as  to  others  who 


have  recorded  the  phrase,  he 
remarked  that  he  "thought 
it  might  be  risky, — swapping 
horses  in  mid-stream. "  .   .   . 

"  Do  you  know,  "  queried 
the  President,  "w^hat  General 
Grant  thinks  of  the  effort  now 
making     to     nominate     him 

^.oraGranU  Lincoln  and  iheFrcedrnen.  '       [Grant]     for     thc     PrCsidcnCy? 

FACSIMILE  OF  PASS  BY  LINCOLN  Has  he  spokcn  of  it  to  you  ? " 

I  answered  that  I  knew 
nothing ;  that  I  had  been  so  far  away  from  Grant  since  the  opening 
of  the  campaign  that  I  had  not  heard  what  he  thought. 

"Well,"  said  Lincoln,  "the  disaffected  are  trying  to  get  him 
to  run,  but  I  don't  think  they  can  do  it.  If  he  is  the  great  general 
we  think  he  is,  he  must  have  some  consciousness  of  it,  and  know 
that  he  cannot  be  satisfied  with  himself,  and  secure  the  credit  due 
for  his  great  generalship,  if  he  does  not  finish  his  job.  I  do  not 
believe,  "  he  repeated,  "that  they  can  get  him  to  run.  "... 

It  was  distinctly  not  the  personal  rivalry  with  Grant  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  dreaded,  but  rather  the  loss  which  our  cause  would 
suffer  if  Grant  could  be  induced  to  go  into  politics  before  the  mili- 
tary situation  was  secure.  This  the  President  made  unmistakably 
plain  to  me.     His  confidence  in  Grant  was  one  of  the  finest  things 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  579 

I  ever  witnessed.     The  generals,  he  said,  had  failed  him,  one  after 
the  other,  until  Grant  had  come  to  the  front. 

"  Before  Grant  took  command  of  the  Eastern  forces,  "  said  the 
President,  "we  did  not  sleep  at  night  here  in  Washington.  We 
began  to  fear  the  Rebels  would  take  the  Capital,  and  once  in  posses- 
sion of  that,  we  feared  that  foreign  countries  might  acknowledge 
the  Confederacy.  Nobody  could  foresee  the  evil  that  might  come 
from  the  destruction  of  records  and  of  property.  But  since  Grant 
has  assumed  command  on  the  Potomac,  I  have  made  up  my  mind 
that  whatever  it  is  possible  to  have  done.  Grant  will  do,  and  what- 
ever he  doesn't  do,  I  don't  believe  is  to  be  done.  And  now, "  he 
added  with  emphasis,  "we  sleep  at  night.  " 

Grant,  Lincoln  and  the  Freedmen,  John  Eaton,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  page  184. 

The  President  in  the  Streets  of  the  Capital 

August  12th  (1864).  I  see  the  President  almost  every  day, 
as  I  happen  to  live  where  he  passes  to  or  from  his  lodgings  out  of 
town.  He  never  sleeps  at  the  White  House  during  the  hot  season, 
but  has  quarters  at  a  healthy  location  some  three  miles  north  of 
the  city,  the  Soldiers'  Home,  a  United  States  military  establish- 
ment. I  saw  him  this  morning  about  8.30  coming  in  to  business, 
riding  on  Vermont  Avenue,  near  L  Street.  He  always  has  a  com- 
pany of  twenty-five  or  thirty  cavalry,  with  sabres  drawn  and  held 
upright  over  their  shoulders.  They  say  this  guard  was  against  his 
personal  wish,  but  he  let  his  counselors  have  their  way.  The  party 
makes  no  show  in  uniform  or  horses.  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  saddle 
generally  rides  a  good-sized,  easy-going  gray  horse,  is  dressed  in 
plain  black,  somewhat  rusty  and  dusty,  wears  a  black  stiff  hat,  and 
looks  about  as  ordinary  in  attire,  etc.,  as  the  commonest  man.  A 
lieutenant,  with  yellow  stripes,  rides  at  his  left,  and  following 
behind,  two  by  two,  come  the  cavalry  men,  in  their  yellow-striped 
jackets.  They  are  generally  going  at  a  slow  trot,  as  that  is  the 
pace  set  them  by  the  one  they  wait  upon.  The  sabres  and  accoutre- 
ments clank,  and  the  entirely  unornamental  cortege,  as  it  trots 
towards  Lafayette  Square,  arouses  no  sensation,  only  some  curious 
stranger  stops  and  gazes.  I  see  very  plainly  Abraham  Lincoln's 
dark  brown  face,  with  the  deep-cut  lines,  the  eyes  always  look  to 
me  with  a  deep  latent  sadness  in  the  expression.  We  have  got  so 
that  we  exchange  bows,  and  very  cordial  ones.     Sometimes  the 


S8o  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

President  goes  and  comes  in  an  open  barouche.  The  cavalry  always 
accompany  him,  with  drawn  sabres.  Often  I  notice  as  he  goes  out 
evenings — and  sometimes  in  the  morning,  when  he  returns  early — 
he  turns  off  and  halts  at  the  large  and  handsome  residence  of  the 
Secretary  of  War,  on  K  Street,  and  holds  conference  there.  If  in 
his  barouche,  I  can  see  from  my  window  he  does  not  alight,  but  sits 
in  his  vehicle,  and  Mr.  Stanton  comes  out  to  attend  him.  Some- 
times one  of  his  sons  (Tad),  a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve,  accompanies 
him,  riding  at  his  right  on  a  pony.  Earlier  in  the  summer  I  occa- 
sionally saw  the  President  and  his  wife,  toward  the  latter  part  of 
the  afternoon,  out  in  a  barouche,  on  a  pleasure  ride  through  the 
city.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  dressed  in  complete  black,  with  a  long 
crape  veil.  The  equipage  is  of  the  plainest  kind,  only  two  horses, 
and  they  nothing  extra.  They  once  passed  me  very  close,  and  I  saw 
the  President  in  the  face  fully,  as  they  were  moving  slowly,  and  his 
look,  though  abstracted,  happened  to  be  directed  steadily  in  my 
eye.  He  bowed  and  smiled,  but  far  beneath  his  smile  I  noticed  well 
the  expression  I  have  alluded  to.  None  of  the  artists  or  pictures 
have  caught  the  deep,  though  subtle  and  indirect  expression  of  this 
man's  face.  There  is  something  else  there.  One  of  the  great 
portrait  painters  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago  is  needed. 

specimen  Days,  Walt  Whitman,  Complete  Prose  Works,  page  43. 

Lincoln's  War  Despatches 

During  the  entire  War,  the  files  of  the  War  Department  tele- 
graph office  were  punctuated  with  short,  pithy  despatches  from 
Lincoln.  For  instance,  on  May  24,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  ten  or 
twelve  telegrams  to  various  generals ;  on  May  25,  as  many  more ; 
and  from  one  to  a  dozen  on  nearly  every  succeeding  day  for  months. 
It  is  also  worthy  of  remark  that  Lincoln's  numerous  telegrams,  even 
those  sent  by  him  during  his  two  weeks '  visit  to  City  Point  in  March 
and  April,  1865,  and  the  less  than  a  half  dozen  he  sent  after  his 
return  to  Washington,  were  almost  without  exception  in  his  own 
handwriting,  his  copy  being  remarkably  neat  and  legible,  with 
seldom  an  erasure  or  correction. 

While  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sometimes  critical  and  even  sarcastic 
when  events  moved  slowly,  or  when  unsatisfactory  results  that 
seemed  to  be  demanded  by  the  immediate  conditions  were  lacking, 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  5s i 

yet  he  never  failed  to  commend  when  good  news  came,  as  in  the 
following : 

"August  17,  1864,  10.30  A.M. 
"Lieutenant-General  Grant,  City  Point,  Va. : — I  have  seen 
your  despatch  expressing  your  unwillingness  to  break  your  hold 
where  you  are.     Neither  am  I  willing.     Hold  on  with  a  bulldog 
grip  and  chew  and  choke  as  much  as  possible. 

"A.  Lincoln." 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  David  Homer  Bates,  page  123. 

Tad's  Tantrum  and  How  His  Father  Quieted  It 

The  day  after  the  review  of  Burnside's  division,  some  photog- 
raphers from  Brady's  gallery  came  up  to  the  White  House  to  make 
some  stereoscopic  studies  for  me  of  the  President's  office.  They 
requested  a  dark  closet  in  which  to  develop  pictures ;  and  without 
a  thought  that  I  was  infringing  upon  anybody's  rights,  I  took  them 
to  an  unoccupied  room  of  which  little  Tad  had  taken  possession 
a  few  days  before,  and,  with  the  aid  of  a  couple  of  servants,  had 
fitted  up  as  a  miniature  theater,  with  stage,  curtains,  orchestra, 
stalls,  parquet,  and  all.  Knowing  that  the  use  required  would 
interfere  with  none  of  his  arrangements,  I  led  the  way  to  this 
apartment. 

Everything  went  on  well,  and  one  or  two  pictures  had  been 
taken,  when  suddenly  there  was  an  uproar.  The  operator  came 
back  to  the  office,  and  said  that  Tad  had  taken  great  offense  at  the 
occupation  of  his  room  without  his  consent,  and  had  locked  the 
door,  refusing  all  admission.  The  chemicals  had  been  taken  inside 
and  there  was  no  way  of  getting  at  them,  he  having  carried  off  the 
key. 

In  the  midst  of -this  conversation  Tad  burst  in  in  a  fearful 
passion.  He  laid  all  the  blame  upon  me, — said  that  I  had  no  right 
to  use  his  room,  and  that  the  men  should  not  go  in  even  to  get  their 
things.  He  had  locked  the  door,  and  they  should  not  go  there 
again — "they  had  no  business  in  his  room!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  sitting  for  a  photograph,  and  was  still  in 
the  chair.     He  said,  very  mildly : 

"Tad,  go  and  unlock  the  door. " 

Tad  went  off  muttering  into  his  mother's  room,  refusing  to 
obey.     I  followed  him  into  the  passage,   but  no  coaxing  would 


582  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

pacify  him.  Upon  my  return  to  the  President,  I  found  him  still 
sitting  patiently  in  the  chair,  from  which  he  had  not  risen.     He  said : 

"  Has  not  the  boy  opened  that  door? " 

I  replied  that  we  could  do  nothing  with  him — he  had  gone  off 
in  a  great  pet.  Mr.  Lincoln's  lips  came  together  firmly,  and  then, 
suddenly  rising,  he  strode  across  the  passage  with  the  air  of  one 
bent  on  punishment,  and  disappeared  in  the  domestic  apartments. 
Directly  he  returned  with  the  key  to  the  theater,  which  he  unlocked 
himself. 

"There,"  said  he,  "go  ahead;  it  is  all  right  now." 

He  then  went  back  to  his  office,  followed  by  myself,  and 
resumed  his  seat. 

"Tad,"  said  he,  half  apologetically,  "is  a  peculiar  child.  He 
was  violently  excited  when  I  went  to  him.  I  said,  'Tad,  do  you 
know  you  are  making  your  father  a  great  deal  of  trouble?'  He 
burst  into  tears,  instantly  giving  me  up  the  key. " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  91. 

"The  Madam  Knew  Nothing  of  Him  "Whatever" 

The  party  consisted  of  a  lady  and  two  gentlemen.  She  had 
come  to  ask  that  her  husband,  who  was  a  prisoner  of  war,  might  be 
permitted  to  take  the  oath  and  be  released  from  confinement.  To 
secure  a  degree  of  interest  on  the  part  of  the  President,  one  of  the 

gentlemen  claimed  to  be  an  acquaintance  of  Mrs.  Lincoln 

The  President  proceeded  to  ask  what  position  the  lady's  husband 
held  in  the  Rebel  service. 

"Oh,"  said  she,  "he  was  a  captain." 

"A  captain!''  rejoined  Mr.  Lincoln,  "indeed! — rather  too  big  a 
fish  to  set  free  simply  upon  his  taking  the  oath.  If  he  was  an 
officer,  it  is  proof  positive  that  he  has  been  a  zealous  Rebel;  I  can- 
not release  him. ' ' 

Here  the  lady's  friend  reiterated  the  assertion  of  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Mrs.  Lincoln.  Instantly  the  President's  hand  was  upon 
the  bell-rope.     An  usher  answered  the  summons. 

"  Cornelius,  take  this  man's  name  to  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  ask  her 
what  she  knows  of  him. " 

The  boy  promptly  returned  with  the  reply  that  ''the  Madam'* 
(as  she  was  called  by  the  servants)  knew  nothing  of  him  whatever. 
The  man  said  it  was  very  strange. 


LINCOLN  AND  GRANT  583 

"  Well,  it  is  just  as  I  expected,  "  said  the  President.  The  party 
made  one  more  attempt  to  enlist  his  sympathy,  but  without  effect. 

"It  is  of  no  use,"  was  the  reply;  "I  cannot  release  him." 
The  trio  withdrew,  the  lady  in  high  displeasure. 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  40. 

A  Whimsical  Excuse  for  Granting  a  Pardon 

As  Lieutenant-Governor  Ford,  of  Ohio,  entered  the  White 
House  his  attention  was  attracted  by  a  poorly-clad  young  woman 
who  was  violently  sobbing.    .    .    , 

Her  story  was  this:  She  and  her  brother  were  foreigners,  and 
orphans.  They  had  been  in  this  country  several  years.  Her 
brother  enlisted  in  the  army,  but,  through  bad  influences,  was  in- 
duced to  desert.  He  was  captured,  tried,  and  sentenced  to  be 
shot — the  old  story.  The  poor  girl  had  obtained  the  signatures  of 
some  persons  who  had  formerly  known  him  to  a  petition  for  a  par- 
don, and,  alone,  had  come  to  Washington  to  lay  the  case  before 
the  President.  Thronged  as  the  waiting-rooms  always  were,  she 
had  passed  the  long  hours  of  two  days  trying  in  vain  to  get  an 
audience,  and  had  at  length  been  ordered  away  by  the  servants. 

Mr.  Ford  made  the  young  woman  accompany  him  into  the 
President's  office.     When  they  were  seated  he  said  to  her: 

"When  the  President  comes  back  he  will  sit  down  in  that  arm- 
chair. I  shall  get  up  to  speak  to  him,  and  as  I  do  so  you  must 
force  yourself  between  us,  and  insist  upon  his  examining  your 
papers,  telling  him  it  is  a  case  of  life  and  death."  .    .    . 

These  instructions  were  carried  out  to  the  letter.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  at  first  somewhat  surprised  at  the  apparent  forwardness  of 
the  young  woman,  but,  observing  her  distress,  he  ceased  convers- 
ing with  his  friend,  and  commenced  an  examination  of  the  document 
she  had  placed  in  his  hands.  Glancing  from  it  to  the  face  of  the 
petitioner,  whose  tears  had  broken  forth  afresh,  he  studied  its  ex- 
pression for  a  moment,  and  then  his  eye  fell  upon  her  scanty  but 
neat  dress.     Instantly  his  face  lighted  up. 

"My  poor  girl,"  said  he,  "you  have  come  here  with  no  Gov- 
ernor, or  Senator,  or  member  of  Congress,  to  plead  your  cause.  You 
seem  honest  and  truthful, — I'll  be  whipped  if  I  don't  pardon  your 
brother — for,"  he  added  with  much  emphasis,  ''you  don't  wear 
hoops!'' 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  295. 


584  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Mrs.  Bixby  Receives  Her  Three  Sons  Again  as  from  the  Dead 

For  this  single  sheet  on  which  is  written,  in  the  great  War 
President's  famihar  hand,  a  collector  would  gladly  pay  many 
hundreds  of  dollars.  It  will  go  down  to  posterity  as  one  of  the 
finest  expressions  of  condolence  and  sympathy  ever  penned  in  our 
language 

Yet,  while  recognizing  the  beauty  of  Lincoln's  letter,  the 
investigator  of  historical  facts  must  find  that,  by  a  chain  of  curious 
circumstances,  the  letter  was  written  under  a  misapprehension; 
that  the  woman  to  w^hom  it  was  addressed  had  not  lost  five  sons  in 
the  War,  although  she  doubtless  believed,  at  the  time,  that  she  had; 
and,  although  five  Bixby  brothers  served  their  country  in  the  great 
struggle,  only  two  lost  their  lives  in  it 

On  September  24,  1864,  Adjutant-General  William  Schouler, 
in  a  report  to  Governor  Andrew  of  Massachusetts,  submitted  the 
following  suggestions  regarding  Mrs.  Lydia  Bixby  of  Boston : 

"  About  ten  days  ago  Mrs.  Bixby  came  to  my  office  and  showed 
me  five  letters  from  five  different  company  commanders,  and  each 
letter  informed  the  poor  woman  of  the  death  of  one  of  her  sons. 
Her  last  remaining  son  was  recently  killed  in  the  fight  on  the 

Weldon  railroad Each  of  her  sons,  by  his  good  conduct 

had  been  made  a  sergeant. ' ' 

To  this  report  Governor  Andrew  applied  this  indorsement : 

"  This  is  a  case  so  remarkable  that  I  really  wish  a 

letter  might  be  written  her  by  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
taking  notice  of  so  well  deserved  a  noble  mother  of  five  dead  heroes." 

In  accordance  with  this  recommendation,  President  Lincoln .  . 
....  turned  aside  from  the  overw^helming  cares  and  anxieties  of 
his  high  place  of  responsibility  and  duty,  and  indited  the  now 
famous  letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby. 

A  Rare  Lincoln  Letter  and  Its  Curious  Story,  Boston  Sunday  Globe,  April  12,  1908. 

[Note. — Through  the  confusing  of  two  families  of  Bixbys,  the 
error  occurred.  Mrs.  Lydia  Bixby,  after  receiving  the  treasured 
letter,  had  the  unspeakable  joy  of  receiving  three  of  her  sons  back 
as  from  the  grave.  This  beautiful  letter  is  given  in  facsimile  on 
the  opposite  page. — W,  W.] 


eJS  OK^  JluL,       6irU^,    ^?Ka^^ 

^  xnx.^  ^..^  ..Sv^  oc^  ^^^....:^^  _  ;2^^^^e^  /-Z^c*^ 

xH.^^    -'^-^-^  ^^^--^  <u^j.;::^  ^ 

o^  ■f^tft.wf    'lA-tT-t.oti/-«/»'>%*-vu^^    Ot-i-o^    ,Ce.,>6**-*-    ■y/tn>^    -ift.^  ~tH->^    C'^ilL'r^'i^'^.^^e^ 
•7>,,g,,v»v«-r^  <rf-tPUjL>  /^<»-uA*t»d    a^>.u^  .£o-»^,  Ot'Vvo^  "i:^  ,,*t<>C*.-v>v*^  -^v>-wt>^ 

LINCOLN'S  FAMOUS  LETTER  TO  A  BOSTON  MOTHER 

A  cop7  of  this  letter  hangs  on  the  wall  in  Brasenose  College,  Oxford  University,  England,  as  a  modal  •< 
pure  and  exquisite  diction  which  has  never  been  excelled. 


^RO 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Renominated,  Elected,   Inaugurated 

"When  the  Presidential  'Grub'  Gets  Inside  of  a  Man!" 

When  he  was  a  candidate  for  renomination  he  did  not  disguise 
his  anxiety  to  remain  in  the  White  House  for  four  years  more,  to 
finish,  as  he  expressed  it,  the  great  job  the  people  had  given  him 
to  do. 

It  was  not  Fremont  he  feared,  nor  the  Wade-Davis  Manifesto, 
nor  was  he  afraid  of  the  numerous  and  powerful  malcontents  inside 
his  own  party,  headed  by  Chase  and  Greeley.  But  he  did  fear,  as  he 
told  me,  that  General  Grant's  name  would  be  sprung  upon  the 
Baltimore  convention.  Indeed,  such  an  effort  was  made,  and 
Missouri  did  cast  her  solid  vote  for  Grant  for  President,  but  Grant 
wisely  and  stubbornly  refused  to  countenance  this  movement,  and 
by  telegraph  forbade  it .  The  President  learned  that  one  of  Grant's 
staff  was  at  Willard's  Hotel.  He  sent  his  carriage.  The  officer  was 
brought  to  the  White  House  and  ushered  into  the  library.  Lincoln 
said: 

"  Colonel,  does  Grant  want  to  be  President? " 

"No,  sir,"  quickly  replied  the  staff  officer. 

"  Do  you  know  for  certain? " 

"  Yes,  I  do.  You  know  how  close  I  have  been  to  Grant  for  three 
years.  That  he  has  the  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds,  ambition,  I 
cannot  deny.  There  may  be  lurking  in  his  mind  thoughts  of  the 
Presidency  in  the  dim  future.  But  right  well  I  know,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
that  he  is  so  loyal  to  you,  to  whom  he  owes  so  much,  that  there  is  no 
power  on  earth  that  can  drag  his  name  into  this  Presidential  canvass. 
McClellan's  career  was  a  lesson  to  him.  He  said  to  me,  within  a 
week,  *I  regard  Abraham  Lincoln  as  one  of  the  world's  greatest 
men,  and  he  is  without  question  the  greatest  man  I  ever  met. ' 
Grant's  whole  soul,  Mr.  Lincoln,  is  bent  on  your  re-election,  and  his 
one  fixed  idea  is  under  your  lead  as  President,  to  conquer  the 
Rebellion,  and  aid  you  in  restoring  and  rebuilding  the  country  and 
perpetuating  the  Union. " 

(<;R6). 


RENOMINATED.  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  587 

"Ah,  Colonel,"  said  Lincoln,  "you  have  lifted  an  awful  load 
from  my  mind.  I  was  afraid  of  Grant,  because  we  are  all  human; 
although  I  would  rather  be  beaten  by  him  than  by  any  living  man. 
When  the  Presidential  grub  gets  inside  of  a  man  it  hides  itself  and 
burrows  deep.     That  basilisk  is  sure  to  kill.  " 

Recollections  of  Lincoln,  James  M.  Scovel.    Lippincott' s  Magazine,  Vol.  LXIII,  page  282. 

How  Secretary  Chase  Took  Advantage  of  His  Position 

When  Lincoln's  supporters  called  his  attention  to  the  practices 
by  which  the  man  in  the  Treasury  was  advancing  his  political  for- 
tunes, at  the  expense  of  the  Administration,  he  told  them : 

"  I  have  determined  so  far  as  possible  to  shut  my  eyes  to  every- 
thing of  the  sort.  Mr.  Chase  makes  a  good  Secretary,  and  I  shall 
keep  him  where  he  is.  If  he  becomes  President,  all  right.  I  hope 
we  may  never  have  a  worse  man.  " 

Then,  turning  to  the  less  pleasing  aspect  of  the  affair,  he  con- 
tinued : 

"  I  have  observed  with  regret  his  plan  of  strengthening  himself. 
Whenever  he  sees  that  an  important  matter  is  troubling  me,  if  I 
am  compelled  to  decide  in  a  way  to  give  offense  to  a  man  of  some 
influence,  he  always  ranges  himself  in  opposition  to  me  and  per- 
suades the  victim  that  he  has  been  hardly  dealt  with,  and  that  he 
would  have  arranged  it  very  differently.  It  was  so  with  General 
Fremont,  with  General  Hunter  when  I  annulled  his  hasty  proc- 
lamation, with  General  Butler  when  he  was  recalled  from  New 
Orleans,  with  these  Missouri  people  when  they  called  the  other  day. 
I  am  entirely  indifferent  as  to  his  success  or  failure  in  these  schemes, 
so  long  as  he  does  his  duty  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  Department.  " 

These  citations,  furthermore,  would  be  incomplete  without  one 
of  those  homely  stories  whereby  the  President  was  wont  to  point  his 
remarks.  He  narrated  it  to  Henry  J.  Raymond  when  the  famous 
editor  called  his  attention  to  the  danger  that  might  arise  from 
Chase's  candidacy. 

"Raymond,"  said  he,  "you  were  brought  up  on  a  farm,  were 
you  not?  Then  you  know  what  a  'chin  fly'  is.  My  brother  and 
I  were  once  plowing  corn  on  a  farm,  I  driving  the  horse,  and  he 
holding  the  plow.  The  horse  was  lazy,  but  on  one  occasion  rushed 
across  the  field  so  that  I  with  my  long  legs  could  scarcely  keep  pace 


588  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


with  him.  On  reaching  the  end  of  the  furrow,  I  found  an  enormous 
'chin  fly'  fastened  upon  the  horse  and  I  knocked  it  off.  My  brother 
asked  me  what  I  did  that  for.  I  told  him  I  didn't  want  the  old 
horse  bitten  in  that  way.  'Why, '  said  my  brother,  'that's  all  that 
made  him  go ! ' 

"Now,  if  Mr.  Chase  has  a  Presidential  'chin  fly'  biting  him, 
I'm  not  going  to  knock  it  off,  if  it  will  only  make  his  Department 
go." 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  208. 

[Secretary  Chase  tendered  and  withdrew  his  resignation  once 
too  often,  for  Lincoln  finally  surprised  him  and  the  whole  country 
by  accepting  it  one  day  in  June,  1864.  The  President  shortly 
nominated  Chase  for  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  an  office  which  he  filled  with  distinguished  ability 
until  his  death  in  1873. — W.  W.] 

"Never  Get  Between  the  Woman's  Skillet  and  the  Man's  Ax-Helve" 

The  strifes  and  jars  in  the  Republican  party  at  this  time (1864) 
disturbed  him  more  than  anything  else,  but  he  avoided  taking  sides 

with  any  faction I  asked  him  why  he  did  not  take  some 

pronounced  position  in  one  trying  encounter  between  two  very 
prominent  Republicans. 

"  I  learned,  "  said  he,  "a  great  many  years  ago,  that  in  a  fight 
between  man  and  wife,  a  third  party  should  never  get  between  the 
woman's  skillet  and  the  man's  ax-helve.  " 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David  R.  Locke  ("  Petroleum  V.  Nasby  ").  Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  451. 

"Easier  Than  to  Raise  Another  Million  Soldiers" 

Lincoln  was  a  supreme  politician.  He  understood  politics 
because  he  understood  human  nature.  I  had  an  illustration  of 
this  in  the  spring  of  1864.  The  Administration  had  decided  that 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  should  be  amended  so  that  * 
slavery  should  be  prohibited.  This  was  not  only  a  change  in  our 
national  policy,  it  was  also  a  most  important  military  measure.  It 
was  intended  not  merely  as  a  means  of  abolishing  slavery  for- 
ever, but  as  a  means  of  affecting  the  judgment  and  the  feelings 
and  the  anticipations  of  those  in  rebellion.     It  was  believed  that 


H 

9 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED 


589 


such  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  would  be  equivalent  to 
new  armies  in  the  field,  that  it  would  be  worth  at  least  a  million 
men,  that  it  would  be  an  intel- 
lectual army  that  would  tend  to 
paralyze  the  enemy  and  break  the 
continuity  of  his  ideas. 

In  order  thus  to  amend  the 
Constitution,  it  was  necessary  first 
to  have  the  proposed  amendment 
approved  by  three-fourths  of  the 
States.  When  that  question  came 
to  be  considered,  the  issue  was 
seen  to  be  so  close  that  one  State 
more  was  necessary.  The  State 
of  Nevada  was  organized  and 
admitted  to  the  Union  to  answer 
that  purpose.  I  have  sometimes 
heard  people  complain  of  Nevada 
as  superfluous  and  petty,  not 
big  enough  to  be  a  State;  but 
when  I  hear  that  complaint,  I 
always  hear  Abraham  Lincoln  saying: 

"It  is  easier  to  admit  Nevada  than  to  raise  another  million 
soldiers. " 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  Charles  A.  Dana,  page  174. 

"I  Suppose  I  Should  Have  Done  the  Same  Fool  Thing" 

I  was  in  Washington  once  more  in  1864 My  busi- 
ness was  to  secure  a  pardon  for  a  young  man  from  Ohio,  who  had 
deserted  under  rather  peculiar  circumstances.  When  he  enlisted 
he  was  under  engagement  to  a  young  girl,  and  went  to  the  front 
very  certain  of  her  faithfulness,  as  a  young  man  should  be,  and  he 

made  an  excellent  soldier It  is  needless  to  say  that  the 

young  girl  had  another  lover  whom  she  had  rejected  for  the  young 

volunteer Taking    advantage    of   the    absence  of    the 

favored  suitor,  the  discarded  one  renewed  his  suit  with  great 
vehemence,  and  rumors  reached  the  young  man  at  the  front  that 
his  love  had  gone  over  to  the  enemy,  and  that  he  was  in  danger  of 
losing  her  altogether. 


CHARLES  A.   DANA 

Assistant  Secretary  of  War  under 
Lincoln  and  Stanton. 


590  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

He  immediately  applied  for  a  furlough,  which  was  refused  him, 
and,  half  mad  and  reckless  of  consequences,  deserted.  He  found  the 
information  he  had  received  to  be  partially  true,  but  he  came  in 
time.  He  married  the  girl,  but  was  immediately  arrested  as  a 
deserter,  tried,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  shot. 

I  stated  the  circumstances,  giving  the  young  fellow  a  good 
character,  and  the  President  at  once  signed  a  pardon. 

"  I  want  to  punish  the  young  man — probably  in  less  than  a 
year  he  will  wish  I  had  withheld  the  pardon.  We  can't  tell,  though. 
I  suppose  when  I  was  a  young  man  I  should  have  done  the  same 
fool  thing." 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  David   R.  Locke  ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby").     Edited  by  Allen 
Thorndike  Rice,  page  449. 

"Mr.  Secretary,  It  Will  Have  to  Be  Done" 

I  will  cite  one  instance  in  relation  to  Stanton  : 

After  compulsory  military  service  was  resorted  to,  States  and 
districts  tried  to  fill  their  quotas,  and  save  their  own  citizens  from 
being  drafted  into  the  army,  by  voting  bounties  to  buy  men  where- 
ever  they  could  be  found.  The  agent  appointed  by  a  county  in  one 
of  the  Middle  States,  and  supplied  with  bounty  money,  learned  that 
some  Confederate  prisoners  of  war  at  Chicago  were  about  to  be 
released  and  enlisted  in  our  army  for  service  against  the  Indians  in 
the  Northwest.  The  thrifty  thought  occurred  to  the  agent  to  pay 
these  prisoners  a  bounty  for  what  they  were  going  to  do  without 
any  pay  at  all,  and  in  return  for  this  payment  have  them  credited 
as  soldiers  furnished  by  his  county.  Being  an  acquaintance  of 
Lincoln,  the  agent  obtained  from  him  an  order  to  have  the  men 
credited  as  desired.  But  the  Secretary  of  War  refused  to  have  the 
credits  allowed.  Indignant  and  disappointed,  the  agent  returned 
to  the  President,  who  reiterated  the  order,  but  without  effect. 
Then  Lincoln  went  in  person  to  Stanton's  office,  and  I  was  called 
there  by  the  latter  to  state  the  facts  in  the  case. 

I  reported  to  the  two  high  ofhgials,  as  I  had  previously  done  to 
the  Secretary  alone,  that  these  men  already  belonged  to  the  United 
States,  being  prisoners  of  war ;  that  they  could  not  be  used  against 
the  Confederates ;  that  they  had  no  relation  whatever  to  the  county 
to  which  it  was  proposed  Jthey  should  be  credited ;  that  all  that  was 
necessary  toward  enlisting  them  in  our  army  for  Indian  service  was 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  591 

the  Government's  release  of  them  as  prisoners  of  war;  that  to  give 
them  bounty  and  credit  them  to  a  county  which  owed  some  of  its 
own  men  for  service  against  the  Confederates  would  waste  money 
and  deprive  the  army  operating  against  a  powerful  enemy  of  that 
number  of  men,  etc. 

Stanton  said: 

"  Now,  Mr.  President,  those  are  the  facts,  and  you  must  see 
that  your  order  cannot  be  executed.  " 

Lincoln  sat  upon  a  sofa,  with  his  legs  crossed,  and  did  not  say  a 
word  until  the  Secretary's  last  remark.  Then  he  said  in  a  somewhat 
positive  tone : 

"Mr.  Secretary,  I  reckon  you'll  have  to  execute  the  order." 

Stanton  replied  with  asperity : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  cannot  do  it.  The  order  is  an  improper  one, 
and  I  cannot  execute  it. " 

Lincoln  fixed  his  eye  upon  Stanton,  and  in  a  firm  voice,  and 
with  an  accent  that  clearly  showed  his  determination,  he  said : 

"  Mr.  Secretary,  it  will  have  to  he  done.  " 

Stanton  then  realized  that  he  was  overmatched.  He  had  made 
a  square  issue  with  the  President  and  been  defeated,  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  he  was  in  the  right.  Upon  an  intimation 
from  him  I  withdrew  and  did  not  witness  his  surrender.  A  few 
minutes  after  I  reached  my  office  I  received  instructions  from  the 
Secretary  to  carry  out  the  President's  order.  Stanton  never  men- 
tioned the  subject  to  me  afterward,  nor  did  I  ever  ascertain  the 
special,  and  no  doubt  sufficient,  reasons  which  the  President  had 
for  his  action  in  the  case. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  General  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice, 
page  396. 

The  Poems  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 

One  of  Lincoln's  favorite  poems  was  Holmes's  "Last  Leaf;" 
and  one  November  day  we  were  driving  out  to  the  Soldiers '  Home, 
near  Washington,  when  the  aspect  of  the  scene  recalled  the  lines  to 
his  mind.  He  slowly  and  with  excellent  judgment  recited  the 
whole  poem.  Enlarging  upon  the  pathos,  wit  and  humor  of  Holmes, 
I  found  that  the  President  had  never  seen  a  copy  of  the  genial 
doctor's  works,  so  far  as  he  could  remember,  although  he  was  not 
certain  that  he  had  not.  I  offered  to  lend  him  my  copy  of  the 
poems,  a  little  blue-and-gold  book ;  and  the  nejct  time  I  went  to  the 


592  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

White  House  I  took  it  with  me.  About  a  week  after  leaving  the 
book  with  the  President,  I  called  at  the  house  one  evening,  and 
finding  him  alone,  we  settled  down  for  a  quiet  chat.  He  took  from 
a  drawer  in  his  table  the  blue-and-gold  Holmes,  and  went  over  the 
book  with  me  with  much  gusto,  reading  or  reciting  several  poems 
that  had  struck  his  fancy.  He  expressed  his  surprise  at  finding 
that  some  of  the  verses  which  he  admired  most  had  been  drifting 
about  in  the  newspapers  without  the  name  of  the  author  attached 
to  them;  and  it  was  in  this  way,  he  said,  that  he  had  found 
"The  Last  Leaf,"  although  he  did  not  know  that  Dr.  Holmes  was 
the  author.  Finally,  he  said  that  he  liked  "Lexington"  as  well  as 
anything  in  the  book,  "The  Last  Leaf"  alone  excepted,  and  he 
began  to  read  the  poem ;  but  when  he  came  to  the  stanza  beginning, 

"Green  be  the  graves  where  her  martyrs  are  lying! 
Shroudless  and  tombless  they  sunk  to  their  rest,  " 

his  voice  faltered,  and  he  gave  me  the  book  with  the  whispered 
request,  "You  read  it;  I  can't."  Months  afterward,  when  several 
ladies  were  in  the  Red  Parlor  one  evening,  calling  upon  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
he  recited  that  poem  without  missing  a  word  so  far  as  I  could 
remember  it.  And  yet  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  saw  the  text  of 
"Lexington"  except  during  the  few  busy  days  when  he  had 
my  book. 

Glimpses  of  Lincoln  in  War  Time,  Noah  Brooks.    The  Century  Magazine,  Vol.   XXVII,  January, 
189s,  page  46. 

Will  the  Negro  Soldier  Fight? 

It  had  been  represented  to  the  President  that  the  negro  soldier 
would  not  fight.  Quick  as  a  flash  Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  the  "  doubt- 
ling  Thomas"  and  said: 

"The  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts,  under  Colonel  Shaw,  was 
at  Fort  Wagner.  The  fighting  was  hot,  and  the  firing  from  the  fort 
was  very  disastrous  to  our  boys.  The  colors  were  shot  away,  and 
the  colonel  asked  for  a  man  who  would  bring  back  the  flag.  A  black 
soldier  came  forward  and  agreed  to  return  with  the  flag.  He 
crawled  on  his  hands  and  knees,  and,  wrapping  the  colors  around  his 
bodv,  crawled  back,  riddled  with  bullets.  And  three  cheers  went  up 
for  the  color-bearer  of  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts.  Do  you 
tell  me, "  continued  Mr.  Lincoln,  "that  a  black  soldier  won't  fight?" 
The  visitor  was  silenced. 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  593 

He  cited  another  instance, — thus:  A  colonel  on  the  eve  of 
battle  gave  his  color-bearer  the  regimental  flag,  saying,  "  Defend  it, 
protect  it,  die  for  it,  if  need  be.  but  never  surrender  it.  "  The  black 
color-bearer  replied,  "Colonel,  I  will  return  this  flag  with  honor,  or 
/  will  report  to  God  the  reason  why.  "     He  died  in  defending  the  flag. 

Personal    Recollections    of    Abraham  Lincoln,    James  M.    Scovel.    Lippincott's  Magazine,    Vol. 
XLIV,  August,  1889,  page  246. 

"Medill,  You  Are  Acting  Like  a  Coward" 

Joseph  Medill,  for  many  years  editor  of  the  Chicago  Tribune, 
not  long  before  his  death,  told  the  following  story  about  the  "  talk- 
ing to"  President  Lincoln  gave  himself  (Medill)  and  two  other 
Chicago  gentlemen  who  went  to  Washington  to  see  about  reducing 
Chicago's  quota  of  troops  after  the  call  for  extra  men  was  made  by 
the  President  in  1864: 

....  "When  the  call  for  extra  troops  came,  Chicago 
revolted.  She  had  already  sent  22,000  up  to  that  time,  and  was 
drained.     When  the  new  call  came  there  were  no  young  men  to  go. 

The  citizens  held  a  mass  meeting  and  appointed 

three  persons,  of  whom  I  was  one,  to  go  to  Washington  and  ask 
Stanton  to  give  Cook  County  a  new  enrolment. 

"  On  reaching  Washington,  we  went  to  Stanton  with  our  state- 
ment. He  refused  entirely  to  give  us  the  desired  aid.  Then  w^e 
went  to  Lincoln. 

"  'I  cannot  do  it,'  he  said,  'but  I  will  go  with  you  to  the  War 
Department,  and  Stanton  and  I  will  hear  both  sides. ' 

"So  we  all  went  over  to  the  War  Department  together. 
Stanton  and  General  Fry  were  there,  and  they,  af  course,  contended 
that  the  quota  should  not  be  changed.  The  argument  went  on  for 
some  time  and  was  finally  referred  to  Lincoln,  w^ho  had  been  sitting 
silently  listening. 

"  I  shall  never  forget  how  he  suddenly  lifted  his  head  and 
turned  on  us  a  black  and  frowning  face. 

"'Gentlemen,'  he  said  in  a  voice  full  of  bitterness,  'after 
Boston,  Chicago  has  been  the  chief  instrument  in  bringing  war  on 
this  country.' 

"  '  You  called  for  war  until  we  had  it.  You  called  for  emanci- 
pation, and  I  have  given  it  to  you.  Whatever  you  have  asked,  you 
have  had.     Now  you  come  here  begging  to  be  let  off  from  the  call 


594  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

for  men,  which  I  have  made  to  carry  out  the  war  which  you  have 
demanded.  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourselves.  I  have  a 
right  to  expect  better  things  of  you. ' 

"  '  Go  home  and  raise  your  6,000  extra  men.  And  you,  Medill, 
you  are  acting  Uke  a  coward.  You  and  your  Tribune  have  had 
more  influence  than  any  other  paper  in  the  Northwest  in  making 
this  war.  You  can  influence  great  masses,  and  yet  you  cry  to  be 
spared  at  a  moment  when  your  cause  is  suffering.  Go  home  and 
send  us  those  men. ' 

"  I  couldn't  say  anything.  It  was  the  first  time  I  ever  was 
whipped,  and  I  didn't  have  an  answer.  We  all  got  up  and  w^ent  out, 
and  when  the  door  closed  one  of  my  colleagues  said : 

"  'Well,  gentlemen,  the  "old  man"  is  right.  We  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  ourselves.  Let  us  never  say  anything  about  this,  but 
go  home  and  raise  the  men.' 

"  And  we  did — 6,000  men — making  28,000  in  the  War  from  a  city 
of  1 56,000.  But  there  might  have  been  crape  on  every  door,  almost 
in  Chicago,  for  every  family  had  lost  a  son  or  a  husband.  I  lost  two 
brothers.     It  was  hard  for  the  mothers.  " 

"  Ahe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  187. 

The  Enemy's  Strength  Overestimated 

Towards  the  close  of  the  great  conflict,  surmises  upon  the 
length  of  time  to  which  the  War  might  be  protracted  were  based  on 
estimates  of  the  enemy's  strength.  On  being  asked,  point-blank, 
how  strong  he  deemed  the  Confederates  to  be,  the  President  replied 
offhand : 

"They  have  some  1,200,000  in  the  field." 
"Is  it  possible!     How  did  you  find  that  out?" 
"  Why,  "  said  Lincoln,  "  every  Union  general  I  ever  heard  tell — 
when  he  was  licked — says  the  Rebels  outnumbered  him  three  or 
four  to  one;  now,  we  have  at  the  present  time  about  400,000  men, 
and  three  times  that  number  would  be  1,200,000,  wouldn't  it?" 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  189. 

"How  Clean  You  Shave  !" 

His  skill  in  parrying  troublesome  questions  was  wonderful. 
I  was  in  Washington  at  a  critical  period  of  the  War,  when  the  late 
John  Ganson,  of  Buffalo,  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  our  State,  and 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  595 

who,  though  elected  as  a  Democrat,  supported  all  Mr.  Lincoln's 
war  measures,  called  on  him  for  explanations. 

Mr.  Ganson  was  very  bald,  with  a  perfectly  smooth  face,  and 
had  a  most  direct  and  aggressive  way  of  stating  his  views,  or  of 
demanding  what  he  thought  he  was  entitled  to.     He  said : 

"Mr.  Lincoln,  I  have  supported  all  your  measures,  and  think 
I  am  entitled  to  your  confidence.  We  are  voting  and  acting  in  the 
dark  in  Congress,  and  I  demand  to  know — I  think  I  have  a  right  to 
ask  and  to  know— what  is  the  present  situation,  and  what  are  the 
prospects  and  conditions  of  the  several  campaigns  and  armies." 

Mr.  Lincoln  looked  at  him  quizzically  for  a  moment,  and  then 
said: 

"Ganson,  how  clean  you  shave!" 

Most  men  would  have  been  offended,  but  Ganson  was  too  broad 
and  intelligent  a  man  not  to  see  the  point  and  retire  at  once  from 
the  field. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Chauncey  M.  Depew.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page 
432. 

Forty  Falsehoods  to  One  Fact 

It  has  been  well  said  by  a  profound  critic  of  Shakespeare,  and 
it  occurs  to  me  as  very  appropriate  in  this  connection,  that  "the 
spirit  which  held  the  woe  of  Lear  and  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  would 
have  broken  had  it  not  also  had  the  humor  of  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  or  the  merriment  of  a  Midsummer-Night' s  Dream,.     This  is 

as  true  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  it  was  of  Shakespeare Mr. 

Beecher  once  observed  to  me  ....  that  he  "  thought  in  figures," 
or,  in  other  words,  that  an  argument  habitually  took  on  that  form 
in  his  mind.  This  was  pre-eminently  true  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  The 
"points"  of  his  argument  were  driven  home  in  this  way  as  they 
could  be  in  no  other.  In  the  social  circle  this  had  full  play.  I 
never  knew  him  to  sit  down  with  a  friend  for  a  five  minutes'  chat 
without  being  "  reminded  "  of  one  or  more  incidents  about  somebody 
alluded  to  in  the  course  of  the  conversation. 

In  a  corner  of  his  desk  he  kept  a  copy  of  the  latest  humorous 
work;  and  it  was  frequently  his  habit,  when  greatly  fatigued, 
annoyed,  or  depressed,  to  take  this  up  and  read  a  chapter,  with 
great  relief. 


596  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

One  Saturday  evening  I  was  with  him  from  seven  o'clock  till 
nearly  twelve.  It  had  been  one  of  his  most  trying  days,  .  .  and 
he  was  almost  worn  out.  .  .  .  Pushing  everything  aside,  he  said 
to  one  of  the  party : 

"  Have  you  seen  the  'Nasby'  papers? " 

"  No,  I  have  not,  "  was  the  reply,  "  who  is  Nasby? " 

"There  is  a  chap  out  in  Ohio,"  returned  the  President,  "who 
has  been  writing  a  series  of  letters  in  the  newspapers  over  the 
signature  of  'Petroleum  V.  Nasby.'  Some  one  sent  me  a  pamphlet 
collection  of  them  the  other  day.  I  am  going  to  write  to  'Petroleum' 
to  come  down  here,  and  I  intend  to  tell  him  if  he  will  communicate 
his  talent  to  me,  I  will  swap  places  with  him!" 

Thereupon  he  arose,  went  to  a  drawer  in  his  desk,  taking  out 
the  "Letters"  sat  down  and  read  one  to  the  company,  finding  in 
the  enjoyment  of  it  the  temporary  excitement  and  relief  which 
another  man  would  have  found  in  a  glass  of  wine.    .    .    . 

Just  here  I  may  say  with  propriety,  and  feel  that  it  is  due  to 
Mr.  Lincoln's  memory  to  state,  that  during  the  entire  period  of  my 
stay  in  Washington,  after  witnessing  his  intercourse  with  almost  all 
classes  of  people,  including  governors,  senators,  members  of  Con- 
gress, officers  of  the  army,  and  familiar  friends,  I  cannot  recollect 
to  have  heard  him  relate  a  circumstance  to  any  of  them  that  would 
have  been  out  of  place  uttered  in  a  lady's  drawing-room!  I  am 
aware  that  a  different  impression  prevails,  founded,  it  may  be,  in 
some  instances  upon  facts ;  but  where  there  is  one  fact  of  the  kind 
I  am  persuaded  that  there  are  forty  falsehoods,  at  least.  At  any 
rate,  what  I  have  stated  is  voluntary  testimony,  from  a  standpoint, 
I  submit,  entitled  to  respectful  consideration." 

Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Henry  J.  Raymond,  page  228. 

Glad  of  "the  Chance  to  Finish  the  Big  Job" 

He  was  naturally  a  doubter.  He  had  a  "  spirit  touched  to  fine 
issues,"  and  felt  keenly  and  intensely  the  woes  of  others.  Dur- 
ing the  spring  following  Curtin's  re-election  as  governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, I  found  the  President,  fresh  as  a  May  morning,  looking  out 
of  the  east  window  of  the  White  House,  on  the  fragrant,  opening 
bloom  of  the  lilac  bushes  beneath  his  window.  Only  that  day  he 
had  received  the  assurance  that  the  spirit  of  nationality  had  proved 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  597 

stronger  than  the  power  of  fiction,  and  was  fully  informed  that 
Chase,  Ben  Wade,  and  "Pathfinder"  Fremont  were  all  out  of  the 
Presidential  race,  and  his  nomination  before  the  June  convention 
to  be  held  at  Baltimore  would  be  practically  unanimous.  As  I 
entered  the  room,  he  rose  and  pushed  a  chair,  with  his  feet,  across 
the  room,  close  to  his  own.  There  was  a  suspicious  moisture  in  his 
eyes  as  he  grasped  both  of  my  hands  in  both  of  his  own  (a  habit  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  when  greatly  moved  by  joy  or  sorrow). 

"  God  bless  you,  young  man,  "  he  exclaimed.  "  How  glad  I  am 
you  came!  This  is  the  happiest  day  of  my  life;  for  I  no  longer 
doubt  the  practical  unanimity  of  the  people,  who  are  willing  I 
should  have  the  chance  to  finish  the  big  job  I  undertook  nearly 
four  years  ago. " 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  M.  Scovel.     Lippincoti' s  Magazine,  Vol.  XLIV, 
August,  1889,  page  249. 

Confederates,  not  "Rebels" 

While  guiding  the  President  through  the  Washington  hospitals, 
Dr.  Jerome  Walker,  of  Brooklyn,  turned  him  from  a  ward  contain- 
ing prisoners,  saying:  "They  are  Rebels." 

Whereupon  Mr.  Lincoln  corrected  him  with : 

"You  mean  '  they  are  Confederates.'  " 

Lincolnics,  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams,  page  199. 

The  Fremont  Convention  and  the  Cave  of  Adullam 

There  were  others  not  so  honest  who,  for  personal  reasons, 
disliked  the  President.  To  these  it  was  impossible  to  stand  quietly 
by  and  see  Mr.  Lincoln  made  his  own  successor  without  one  last 
effort  to  prevent  it.  The  result  of  informal  consultations  among 
them  was  the  publication  of  a  number  of  independent  calls  for  a 
mass  convention  of  the  people  to  meet  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  on  the 
31st  of  May,  a  week  before  the  assembling  of  the  Republican  Con- 
vention at  Baltimore The  object  stated  in  their  call 

was  in  order  then  and  there  to  recommend  the  nomination  of  John 
C.  Fremont  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States  and  to  assist  in 
organizing  for  his  election.  They  denounced  "the  imbecile  and 
vacillating  policy  of  the  present  Administration  in  the  conduct  of 
the  War, "  etc..  etc. 

[Horace  Greeley  and  Wendell  Phillips  were  expected  to  bo 


598  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

present,  but  failed  to  appear.  A  few  others,  opposed  to  Lincoln  on 
personal  and  other  grounds,  participated  in  the  incoherent  and 
rather  absurd  "  deliberations"  of  this  petty  "  mass  meeting."  W.W.] 

The  whole  proceeding,  though  it  excited  some  indignation 
among  the  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  regarded  by  the  President 
himself  only  with  amusement.  On  the  morning  after  the  Con- 
vention, a  friend,  giving  him  an  account  of  it,  said  that,  instead  of 
the  many  thousands  who  had  been  expected,  there  were  present  at 
no  time  more  than  four  hundred  men. 

The  President,  struck  by  the  number  mentioned,  reached  for 
the  Bible  which  commonly  lay  on  his  desk,  and  after  a  moment's 
search,  read  these  words : 

"  And  every  one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was 
in  debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented,  gathered  themselves 
unto  him ;  and  he  became  a  captain  over  them ;  and  there  were  with 
him  about  four  hundred  men."     (L  Sam.  xxii,  2.) 

[Note. — This,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  several  years  in 
advance  of  the  famous  reference  to  the  Cave  of  Adullam  in  the 
British  Parliament.] 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  IX,  pages  29  to  41. 

"They  Might  Have  Made  a  Botch  of  It  by  Trying  to  Swap" 

These  public  letters  [to  Horace  Greeley  and  James  C.  Conkling] 

are  Lincoln's  most  remarkable  state  papers By  means 

of  them  he  convinced  the  people  of  his  own  rigid  mental  honesty, 
put  reasons  for  his  actions  into  their  mouths,  gave  them  explanation, 
which  were  demonstrations.  They  believed  in  him  because  he  had 
been  frank  with  them,  and  because  he  tried  to  make  matters  so  clear 

to  them,  used  words  which  they  could  understand 

Scarcely  less  important  than  these  letters  in  convincing  the  people 
of  the  wisdom  of  his  policy  were  Lincoln's  stories  and  sayings.  In 
February,  1864,  just  after  the  popular  demand  for  his  renomination 
began  to  develop,  the  New  York  Evening  Post  published  some  two 
columns  of  Lincoln's  stories.  The  New  York  Herald  jeered  at  the 
collection  as  the  "first  electioneering  document"  of  the  campaign, 
and  reprinted  them  as  a  proof  of  the  unfitness  of  Lincoln  for  the 
Presidency.  But  jeer  as  it  would,  the  Herald  could  not  hide  from 
its  readers  the  wit  and  philosophy  of  the  jokes.     Every  one  of  them 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  599 

had  been  used  to  explain  a  point  or  to  settle  a  question,  and  under 
their  laughter  was  concealed  some  of  the  man's  soundest  reasoning. 

Indeed,  at  that  very  moment  the  Herald  might  have  seen,  if  it 
had  been  more  discerning,  that  it  was  a  Lincoln  saying  going  up  and 
down  the  country  that  was  serving  as  one  of  the  strongest  arguments 
for  his  renomination,  the  remark  that  it  was  never  best  to  swap 
horses  while  crossing  a  stream.  Lincoln  had  used  it  in  speaking  of  the 
danger  of  changing  Presidents  in  the  middle  of  the  War.  He  might 
have  written  a  long  message  on  the  value  of  experience  in  a  national 
crisis,  and  it  would  have  been  meaningless  to  the  masses ;  but  this 
homely  figure  of  swapping  horses  in  the  middle  of  the  stream  ap- 
pealed to  their  humor  and  their  common  sense.  It  was  repeated 
over  and  over  in  the  newspapers  of  the  country 

The  Union  Convention  was  set  for  June.  As  the  time  ap- 
proached, Lincoln  enthusiasm  grew.  It  was  fed  by  Grant's  steady 
beating  back  of  Lee  toward  Richmond.  The  country,  wild  with  joy, 
cried  out  that  before  July  Grant  would  be  in  the  Confederate  capital 

and  the  War  would  be  ended The  Union  Convention 

met  in  June.  That  it  would  nominate  Lincoln  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion  Thirty  States  and  Territories  were  for  him, — 

only  one  dissenting  delegation,  Missouri  whose  radical  Union  repre- 
sentatives gave  twenty-two  votes  for  Grant.  On  the  second  reading 
of  the  vote  this  ballot  was  changed,  so  that  the  final  vote  stood 
506  for  Lincoln.      The  President  took  his  renomination  calmly. 

"I  do  not  allow  myself  to  suppose,"  he  said  to  a  delegation 
from  the  National  Union  League  w^hich  came  to  congratulate  him, 
"that  ....  they  have  concluded  to  decide  that  I  am  either  the 
greatest  or  best  man  in  America,  but  rather  they  have  concluded 
that  it  is  not  best  to  swap  horses  while  crossing  a  river,  and  have 
further  concluded  that  I  am  not  so  poor  a  horse  that  they  might 
not  make  a  botch  of  it  by  trying  to  swap. " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  192. 

How  the  President  Heard  of  His  Renomination 

The  next  evening,  when  I  called  on  the  President  at  home,  I 
was  astonished  by  his  jokingly  rallying  me  on  my  failure  to  send 
him  word  of  his  nomination.  It  appeared  that  nobody  had  ap- 
parently thought  it  worth  while  to  telegraph  him  the  result  of  the 
balloting  for  the  Pfesidential  nominee  of  the  Convention.     Probably 


6oo  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

each  of  the  many  men  who  would  have  been  glad  to  be  the  sender  of 
pleasant  tidings  to  the  President,  but  had  thought  that  some  other 
man  would  surely  anticipate  him  by  a  telegram  of  congratulation. 

It  turned  out  that  the  President,  having  business  at  the  War 
Department,  met  Major  Eckert,  superintendent  of  the  military 
bureau  of  telegraphs,  who  congratulated  him  on  his  nomination. 

"What!  Am  I  renominated?"  asked  the  surprised  chief.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Lincoln  expressed  his  gratification,  and  asked  Major  Eckert  if 
he  would  kindly  send  word  over  to  the  White  House  when  the 
name  of  the  candidate  for  Vice-President  should  have  been  agreed 
upon.  Lincoln,  later  on,  was  informed  by  Major  Eckert  that 
Johnson  had  been  nominated,  and  made  an  exclamation  that 
emphatically  indicated  his  disappointment  thereat.  .  .  .  While 
we  were  talking  over  some  of  the  curious  details  of  the  convention 
a  band  came  to  the  White  House,  and  a  messenger  brought  up  the 
information  that  the  members  of  the  Ohio  delegation  to  the  Balti- 
more Convention  desired  to  pay  their  respects  to  the  President, 
whereupon  he  went  to  the  door,  hat  in  hand,  and  when  the  cheering 
and  music  subsided,  spoke  as  follows: 

"Gentlemen:  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  this  com- 
pliment. I  have  just  been  saying,  and  as  I  have  just  said  it,  I  will 
repeat  it :  The  hardest  of  all  speeches  which  I  have  to  make  is  an 
answer  to  a  serenade.  I  never  know  what  to  say  on  such  occasions. 
I  suppose  that  you  have  done  me  this  kindness  in  connection  with 
the  action  of  the  Baltimore  Convention  which  has  recently  taken 
place  and  with  which,  of  course,  I  am  very  well  satisfied.  [Laughter 
and  applause.] 

"What  we  want  still  more  than  Baltimore  conventions  or 
Presidential  elections  is  success  under  General  Grant.  [Cries  of 
"Good,"  and  applause.]  I  propose  that  you  constantly  bear  in 
mind  that  the  support  you  owe  to  the  brave  officers  and  soldiers  in 
the  field  is  of  the  very  first  importance,  and  we  should  bend  all  our 
energies  to  that  point. 

"  Now,  without  detaining  you  any  longer,  I  propose  that  you 
help  me  to  close  up  what  I  am  now  saying  with  three  rousing  cheers 
for  General  Grant  and  the  officers  and  soldiers  under  his  command." 

The  .  .  .  "three  rousing  cheers"  were  given,  Lincoln  himself 
leading  off  and  waving  his  hat  as  enthusiastically  as  anybody  else. 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time.  Noah  Brooks,  page  159. 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  60 1 


"I'm  the  Longest,  but  McClellan's  Better  Looking" 

One  evening  in  September,  1864,  I  was  invited  by  a  few  friends 
to  go  with  them  to  a  Democratic  meeting,  and  listen  to  a  distin- 
guished orator  who  was  to  advocate  the  claims  of  McClellan.  As 
I  could  not  well  refuse,  I  agreed  to  go  for  a  few  minutes  only.  To 
my  surprise  and  annoyance,  I  was  called  on  by  the  audience  for  a 
speech,  and  the  calls  were  so  persistent  that  I  was  placed  in  a  most 
embarrassing  position.  Forced  to  say  something,  I  contented 
myself  with  a  brief  expression  of  my  high  regard  for  McClellan  as  a 
soldier,  and  a  statement  of  my  intention  to  vote  for  him.  I  made 
no  reference  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  soon  left  the  hall. 

Next  day  an  order  came  from  Secretary  Stanton  directing  me 
to  be  mustered  out  of  the  service.  No  reason  was  assigned,  nor 
opportunity  given  for  defense.  As  I  was  and  had  always  been  an 
unwavering  Union  man,  as  I  had  a  brother  and  three  sons  in  the 
military  service  of  the  Union,  and  as  I  had  learned  that  my  action 
at  the  meeting,  when  reported  to  Secretary  Stanton,  had  made  him 
very  angry  and  caused  him  to  utter  severe  threats  against  me,  I 
determined  to  go  to  Washington  to  know  the  reason  of  this  attempt 
to  disgrace  me.  As  no  other  pretext  could  be  given  for  such  action, 
I  resolved  to  appeal  to  the  President. 

I  gave  my  papers  setting  forth  these  facts  into  the  hands  of  a 
personal  friend,  a  Republican  member  of  Congress,  with  the  request 
that  he  would  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  whether  the  revocation  of  my  com- 
mission was  by  his  orders,  knowledge,  or  consent.     He  did  so. 

The  President  immediately  replied :  "I  know  nothing  about  it. 
Of  course  Stanton  does  a  thousand  things  in  his  official  character 
which  I  can  know  nothing  about,  and  which  it  is  not  necessary  that 
I  should  know  anything  about. " 

Having  heard  the  case,  he  then  added : 

"  Well,  that's  no  reason.  Andrews  has  as  good  a  right  to  hold 
on  to  his  Democracy,  if  he  chooses,  as  Stanton  had  to  throw  his 
overboard.  If  I  should  muster  out  all  my  generals  who  avow  them- 
selves Democrats  there  would  be  a  sad  thinning  out  of  commanding 
officers  in  the  army.  No ! "  he  continued,  "  when  the  military  duties 
of  a  soldier  are  fully  and  faithfully  performed,  he  can  manage  his 
politics  in  his  own  way ;  we've  no  more  to  do  with  them  than  with  his 
religion.     Tell  this  officer  he  can  return  to  his  post,  and  if  there  is 


6o2  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

no  other  or  better  reason  for  the  order  of  Stanton  than  the  one  he 
suspects,  it  shall  do  him  no  harm;  the  commission  he  holds  will 
remain  as  good  as  new.  Supporting  General  McClellan  for  the  Presi- 
dency is  no  violation  of  army  regulations,  and  as  a  question  of  taste 
in  choosing  between  him  and  me,  well,  I'm  the  longest,  but  he's 
better  looking!" 

And  so  I  resumed  my  service,  and  was  never  afterward  molested 
by  the  Secretary  of  War. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  E.  W.  Andrews.     Edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  page  516. 

"I've  Lost  my  Apple  Overboard !" 

During  a  public  reception,  a  farmer  from  one  of  the  border 
counties  of  Virginia  told  the  President  that  the  Union  soldiers,  in 
passing  his  farm,  had  helped  themselves,  not  only  to  hay,  but  his 
horse,  and  he  hoped  the  President  would  urge  the  proper  officer  to 
consider  his  claim  immediately. 

Mr.  Lincoln  said  this  reminded  him  of  an  old  acquaintance  of 
his,  Jack  Chase,  a  lumberman  on  the  Illinois,  a  steady,  sober  man, 
and  the  best  raftsman  on  the  river.  It  was  quite  a  trick  to  take  the 
logs  over  the  rapids ;  but  he  was  skilful  with  a  raft,  and  always  kept 
her  straight  in  the  channel.  Finally  a  steamer  was  put  on,  and 
Jack  was  made  captain  of  her.  He  always  used  to  take  the  wheel 
going  through  the  rapids.  One  day,  when  the  boat  was  plunging  and 
wallowing  along  in  the  boiling  current,  and  Jack's  utmost  vigilance 
was  being  exercised  to  keep  her  in  the  narrow  channel,  a  boy  pulled 
his  coat  tail  and  hailed  him  with : 

"Say,  Mister  Captain!  I  wish  you  would  just  stop  your  boat 
a  minute — I've  lost  my  apple  overboard!' ' 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  no. 

"Free  from  Any  Taint  of  Personal  Triumph" 

About  midnight  on  the  day  of  the  election  it  was  certain  that 
Lincoln  had  been  re-elected,  and  the  few  gentlemen  left  in  the  office 
congratulated  him  very  warmly  on  the  result.  Lincoln  took  the 
matter  very  calmly,  showing  not  the  least  elation  or  excitement,  but 
said  that  he  would  admit  that  he  was  glad  to  be  relieved  of  all 
suspense,  and  that  he  was  grateful  that  the  verdict  of  the  people  was 
likely  to  be  so  full,  clear,  and  unmistakable  that  there  could  be  no 
dispute. 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED 


603 


About  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  messenger  came  over  to 
the  War  Office  from  the  White  House  with  the  news  that  a  crowd  of 
Pennsylvanians  were  serenading  his  empty  chamber,  whereupon  he 
went  home;  and,  in  answer  to  repeated  calls,  he  made  a  happy 
little  speech  full  of  good  feeling  and  cheerfulness.  He  wound  up 
his  remarks  by  saying : 


A  CAMPAIGN  POSTER  IN   1864 

Representing  McCIellan,  Lincoln's  Democratic  rival,  struggling  to  keep  Lincoln  and  Davis 

from  rending  the  Union  asunder. 

"  If  I  know  my  heart,  my  gratitude  is  free  from  any  taint  of 
personal  triumph.  I  do  not  impugn  the  motives  of  any  one  opposed 
to  me.  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  triumph  over  any  one,  but  I  give 
thanks  to  the  Almighty  for  this  evidence  of  the  people's  resolution 
to  stand  by  free  government  and  the  rights  of  humanity. " 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  218. 

"I  Believe  "We  Can  Manage  It  Together  and  Make  Two  Loyal 

Fathers  Happy" 

Attorney -General  Bates,  who  was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  .  .  . 
heard  one  day  that  a  young  Virginian,  the  son  of  an  old  friend,  had 


6o4 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


/Vt'' 


% 


<m 


iv^. 


From    Harper's    Weekly, 
Nov.  26,  1864 

"Long  Abraham  a  little  longer' 


been  captured  across  the  Potomac,  was  a 
prisoner  of  war  and  was  not  in  good  health. 
Knowing  the  boy's  father  to  be  in  his  heart 
a  Union  man,  Mr.  Bates  conceived  the  idea 
of  having  the  son  paroled  and  sent  home,  of 
course  under  promise  not  to  return  to  the 
army.  He  went  to  see  the  President  and 
said : 

"I  have  a  personal  favor  to  ask.  I 
want  you  to  give  me  a  prisoner. ' ' 

And  he  told  him  of  the  case.  The  Presi- 
dent said : 

"  Bates,  I  have  an  almost  parallel  case. 
The  son  of  an  old  friend  of  mine  in  Illinois  ran 
off  and  entered  the  Rebel  army.  The  young 
fool  has  been  captured,  is  a  prisoner  of  war, 
and  his  broken-hearted  father  has  asked  me 
to  send  him  home,  promising  of  course  to 
keep  him  there.  I  have  not  seen  my  way 
clear  to  do  it,  but  if  you  and  I  unite  our 
influence  with  this  Administration,  I  be- 
lieve we  can  manage  it  together  and  make 
two  loyal  fathers  happy.  Let  us  make  them 
our  prisoners. " 

And  he  did  so. 

Reminiscences  oj  Abraham  Lincoln, Titian  J.Coffey.     Edited  by 
Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  244. 

"Long  Abraham"  Four  Years  Longer 

Lincoln's  second  election  was  the  re- 
ward of  his  courage  and  genius.  General 
George  B,  McClellan,  his  opponent  in  1864, 
upon  the  platform  that -"the  War  is  a 
failure,"  carried  but  three  States,  New  Jer- 
sey, Delaware  and  Kentucky.  The  States 
which  did  not  think  the  War  a  failure  were 
those  in  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  Western  Commonwealths,  West 
Virginia,    Tennessee,    Louisiana,    Arkansas, 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  605 

and  the  new  State  of  Nevada,  admitted  into  the  Union  on  October 
31,  1864.  President  Lincoln's  popular  majority  over  McClellan, 
who  never  did  much  toward  making  the  War  a  success,  was  more 
than  four  hundred  thousand. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories.    Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  i6i. 

General  Grant's  Congratulations 

As  soon  as  the  result  of  the  Presidential  election  of  1864  was 
known,  General  Grant  telegraphed  from  City  Point  his  congratu- 
lations and  added.: 

"The  election,  having  passed  off  quietly,  ....  is  a  victory 
worth  more  to  the  country  than  a  battle  won. 

"U.  S.  Grant." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  292. 

"  A  Pretty  Mess  You've  Got  Me  Into  ! " 

One  day,  a  persevering  office-seeker  called  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  and, 
presuming  on  the  activity  he  had  shown  in  behalf  of  the  party  ticket, 
asserted  as  a  reason  why  the  office  should  be  given  him,  that  he  had 
made  Mr.  Lincoln  President. 

"  So  you  made  me  President,  did  you? "  asked  Mr.  Lincoln  with 
a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

"  I  think  I  did,  "  said  the  applicant. 

"Then  a  pretty  mess  you've  got  me  into,  that's  all!"  replied 
the  President,  and  closed  the  discussion. 

Winnowings  for  Lincoln's  Birthday,  Agnes  Mawson,  page  S2. 

President  Lincoln's  Attention  to  Children 

It  was  not  only  in  matters  of  life  and  death  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  merciful.  He  was  kind  at  heart  toward  all  the  world. 
I  never  heard  him  say  an  unkind  thing  about  anybody.  Now  and 
then  he  would  laugh  at  something  jocose  or  satirical  that  somebody 
had  done  or  said,  but  it  was  always  pleasant  humor.  He  would 
never  allow  the  wants  of  any  man  or  woman  to  go  unattended  to 
if  he  could  help  it.  I  noticed  his  sweetness  of  nature  particularly 
with  his  little  son,  a  child  at  that  time  perhaps  seven  or  nine  years 
old,  who  used  to  roam  the  Departments  and  whom  everybody 
called  "  Tad.  "  He  had  a  defective  palate,  and  couldn't  speak  very 
plainly.     Often  I  have  sat  by  his  father,  reporting  to  him  some 


6o6  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

important  matter  that  I  had  been  ordered  to  inquire  into,  and  he 
would  have  this  boy  on  his  knee.  While  he  would  perfectly  under- 
stand the  report,  the  striking  thing  about  him  was  his  affection  for 

the   child. 


LEADING  EVENTS  IN  1864 

Sherman  destroys  Meridian,  Miss February 

Grant  made  Lieutenant-General March  3 

Battle  of  the  Wilderness,  Va.  (claimed 

by  both  sides) May  5-7 

Siege  of  Petersburg,  Va.,  begun June 

The  "Kearsarge"  sinks  the  "Alabama"      June  19 

E  rly  burns  Chambersburg,  Pa July  30 

Confederate  success  at  the  Petersburg 

Mine,  Virginia July  30 

Farragut  enters  Mobile  Bay August  5 

Sherman   takes  Atlanta,  Ga September  2 

Union  victory  at  Winchester,  Va.  .  .  September  9 
Union  victory  at  Cedar  Creek,  Va. 

("Sheridan's  Ride") October  19 

Sherman's    march   from    Atlanta    to 

Savannah Nov.  12  to  Dec.  21 

Union    victory,    under    Thomas,    at 

Nashville,  Tenn Dec.  15-16 

Sherman  takes  Savannah,  Ga Dec.  21 


He  was  good  to  every- 
body. Once  there  was  a  great 
gathering  at  the  White  House 
on  New  Year's  Day,  and  all 
the  diplomats  came  in  their 
uniforms,  and  all  the  officers 
of  the  Army  and  Navy  in 
Washington  were  in  full  cos- 
tume. A  little  girl  of  mine 
said,  "Papa,  couldn't  you 
take  me  over  to  see  that  ? "     I 

said,  "  Yes ; "  so  I  took  her  over 

and  put  her  in  a  corner,  where 
she  beheld  this  gorgeous  show.  When  it  was  finished,  I  went  up 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  and  said,  "I  have  a  little  girl  here  who  wants  to 
shake  hands  with  you.  "  He  went  over  to  her,  and  took  her  up  and 
kissed  her  and  talked  to  her.  She  will  never  forget  it  if  she  Hves  to 
be  a  thousand  years  old. 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  Charles  A.  Dana,  page  184. 

The  "Man  Down  South"  and  Some  Offenders 

Once,  at  a  reception  in  the  White  House,  I  joined  the  long 
queue  of  people,  shook  hands  with  the  President,  received  the  usual 
"Glad  to  see  you,  sir,"  and  passed  on.  Later  in  the  evening, 
meeting  me,  he  declared  that  he  had  not  seen  me  before,  and 
explained  his  preoccupation  of  manner,  while  the  people  were 
shaking  hands  with  him,  by  saying  that  he  was  "thinking  of  a  man 
dowm  South."  It  afterwards  came  out  that  the  "man  down 
South"  was  Sherman. 

Once,  when  a  visitor  used  profane  language  in  his  presence,  he 
rose  and  said,  "  I  thought  Senator  C.  had  sent  me  a  gentleman.  I 
was  mistaken.     There  is  the  door,  and  I  wish  you  good  night. " 

At  another  time,  a  delegation  from  a  distant  State  waited  on 
him  with  a  written  protest  against  certain  appointments.  The 
paper  contained  some  reflections  upon  the  character  of  Senator 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED 


607 


Baker,  Lincoln's  old  and  beloved  friend.  With  great  dignity,  the 
President  said : 

"  This  is  my  paper  which  you  have  given  me  ? ' '  Assured  that 
it  was,  he  added, 

•'  To  do  with  as  I  please? " 

"Certainly,  Mr.  President." 

Lincoln  stooped  to  the  fire-place  behind  him,  laid  it  on  the 
burning  coals,  turned  and  said, 

"Good  day,  gentlemen." 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks.  Scribner's  Monthly.Vol.  XV,  March,  1878,  page  608. 

"  Want  to  Know  All  About  Sherman's  Raid  ?  " 

Lincoln  always 
composed  slowly,  and 
he  often  wrote  and 
re-wrote  his  more 
elaborate  productions 
several  times.  I  hap- 
pened to  be  with  him 
often  while  he  was 
composing  his  message 
to  Congress,  which 
was  sent  in  while  Sher- 
man was  on  his  march 
through  Georgia. 
There  was  much 
speculation  as  to  where 
Sherman  had  gone, 
and  the  secret  was  very 
well  preserved.  The 
President  hoped,  from 
day  to  day,  that  Sher- 
man would  be  heard 
from,  or  that  some- 
thing would  happen 
to  enlighten  "  and  pos- 
sibly congratulate  the 
country,"  as  he  put 
it.     But  December  came  and  there  were  no  tidings  from  Sher- 


GENERAL  WILLIAM  TECUMSEH  SHERMAN 


6o8  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

man,  though  everybody  was  hungry  with  expectation,  and  feverish 
with  anxiety. 

The  President's  message  was  first  written  with  pencil  on  stifif 
sheets  of  white  pasteboard,  or  box-board,  a  good  supply  of  which  he 
kept  by  him.  These  sheets,  five  or  six  inches  wide,  could  be  laid 
on  the  writer's  knee,  as  he  sat  comfortably  in  his  arm-chair,  in  his 
favorite  position,  with  his  legs  crossed.  One  night,  taking  one  of 
these  slips  out  of  his  drawer,  with  a  great  affectation  of  confidential 
secrecy,  he  said : 

"  I  expect  you  want  to  know  all  about  Sherman's  raid? " 
Naturally  I  answered  in  the  affirmative,  when  he  said : 
"Well,  then,  I'll  read  you  this  paragraph  from  my  message." 
The  paragraph,  however,  was  curiously  non-committal,  merely 
referring  to  "  General  Sherman's  attempted  march  of  three  hundred 
miles  directly  through  the  insurgent  region,"  and  gave  no  indication 
whatever  of  the  direction  of  the  march,  or  of  the  point  from  which 
new^s  from  him  was  expected. 

Laying  the  paper  down  and  taking  off  his  spectacles,  the  Presi- 
dent laughed  heartily  at  my  disappointment,  but  added,  kindly, 
"  Well,  my  dear  fellow,  that's  all  that  Congress  will  know  about 
it,  anyhow." 

He  took  a  simple-hearted  pleasure  in  considering  some  of  his 
best  "hits.  "  Occasionally,  he  would  tell  his  more  intimate  friends 
of  a  sharp  saying  that  he  had  uttered  during  that  day ;  and  once  he 
wrote  out  for  publication  an  interview  he  had  just  had  with  two 
ladies.  ,  .  .  He  thought  he  "had  got  the  best  of  the  argument," 
he  said,  though  he  granted  the  petition  of  the  ladies.  In  that 
writing,  I  remember,  he  did  not  use  capital  letters  when  he  men- 
tioned the  days  of  the  week ;  and  he  said  that  with  him  punctuation 
was  a  matter  of  feeling,  not  of  education.  But  his  punctuation  was 
always  good,  and  he  was  addicted  to  what  the  printers  call  "close 
punctuation. " 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  Noah  Brooks,  page  298. 

"A  Useful  Little  Chap" 

During  the  early  part  of  the  winter  of  1864-5  he  sent  for  me 
"to  hear  a  story.  "  It  was  written  on  one  of  his  pasteboard  sheets, 
in  pencil,  and  after  I  came  into  the  room,  he  asked  me  to  wait  until 
he  had  finished  it,  as  it  was  not  quite  all  written  ...  I  give  it, 
as  follows: 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  bog 

"The  President's  Last,  Shortest  and  Best  Speech. 

"On  Thursday  of  last  week  two  ladies  from  Tennessee  came 
before  the  President  asking  the  release  of  their  husbands  held  as 
prisoners  of  war  at  Johnson's  Island.  They  were  put  off  till  Friday, 
when  they  came  again  and  were  again  put  off  till  Saturday.  At 
each  of  the  interviews  one  of  the  ladies  urged  that  her  husband  was 
a  religious  man.  On  Saturday  the  President  ordered  the  release  of 
the  prisoners,  and  then  said  to  the  lady : 

"  '  You  say  your  husband  is  a  religious  man ;  tell  him  when  you 
meet  him,  that  I  say  I  am  not  much  of  a  judge  of  religion,  but 
that,  in  my  opinion,  the  religion  that  sets  men  to  rebel  and  fight 
against  their  government,  because,  as  they  think,  that  Government 
does  not  sufficiently  help  some  men  to  eat  their  bread  on  the  sweat 
of  other  men's  faces,  is  not  the  sort  of  religion  upon  which  people 
can  get  to  heaven. ' 

"A.  Lincoln." 

"  Now ! "  said  he,  when  he  had  read  it.  "It  occurred  to  me  that 
that  was  worth  printing.  What  do  you  think?  .  .  .  .Don't  wait 
and  send  it  to  California  in  your  correspondence,  "  he  added.  "  I've 
a  childish  desire  to  see  it  in  print  right  away." 

Lincoln  showed  a  surprising  amount  of  gratification  over  this 
trifle  and  set  his  signature  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  of  manu- 
script, at  my  suggestion,  in  order  to  authenticate  the  autograph. 
.  .  After  the  phrase,  "  You  say  your  husband  is  a  religious  man, " 
Lincoln  inserted  a  semicolon,  and  calling  my  attention  to  it,  he 
said,  "  Is  that  the  correct  punctuation  mark,  or  should  that  sen- 
tence be  set  off  by  itself  with  a  full  stop?"  Reassured  on  that 
point  he  added, 

"With  educated  people,  I  suppose,  punctuation  is  a  matter  of 
rule;  with  me  it  is  a  matter  of  feeling.  But  I  must  say  that  I 
have  a  great  respect  for  the  semicolon;  it's  a  useful  little  chap." 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks.     Scribners  Monthly,  Vol.  XV,  February,  1878, 
page  566. 

Savannah,  Sherman's  "Christmas  Gift"  to  the  Country 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  last  man  in  the  North  to  relax  efforts.  Al- 
though he  had  an  army  of  nearly  a  million  men  enrolled  at  the  time 

%9 


610  THE  STORY-LIFE  OE  LINCOLN 

of  his  re-election,  he  called,  on  December  19th,  for  300,000  volun- 
teers to  serve  for  one,  two  or  three  years. 

A  week  after  this  call  Sherman  "came  out"  and  presented  the 
country  Savannah  as  a  Christmas  gift.  The  letter  Lincoln  wrote 
him  is  worthy  to  be  placed  beside  the  one  he  wrote  to  Grant  after 
Vicksburg : 

"Executive  Mansion, 
"Washington,  December  26,   1864. 
"My  dear  General  Sherman: 

"Many,  many  thanks  for  your  Christmas  gift,  the  capture  of 
Savannah. 

"  When  you  were  about  leaving  Atlanta  for  the  Atlantic  coast, 
I  was  anxious,  if  not  fearful;  but  feeling  that  you  were  the  better 
judge,  and  remembering  that  'nothing  risked,  nothing  gained,' 
I  did  not  interfere.  Now,  the  undertaking  being  a  success,  the 
honor  is  all  yours;  for  I  believe  none  of  us  went  further  than  to 
acquiesce. 

"  And  taking  the  work  of  General  Thomas  into  the  count,  as  it 
should  be  taken,  it  is  indeed  a  great  success.  Not  only  does  it  afford 
the  obvious  and  immediate  military  advantages;  but  in  showing 
to  the  world  that  your  army  could  be  divided,  putting  the  stronger 
part  in  an  important  new  service,  and  yet  leaving  enough  to  van- 
quish the  old  opposing  force  of  the  whole, — Hood's  army, — it  brings 
those  who  sat  in  darkness  to  see  a  great  light.     But  what  next? 

"  I  suppose  it  will  be  safe  if  I  leave  General  Grant  and  yourself 
to  decide. 

"Please  make  my  grateful  acknowledgments  to  your  whole 
army — officers  and  men. 

* '  Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

The  Ltfie  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  208. 

Lieutenant  Tad  and  His  Sentinels 

Tad,  having  been  sportively  commissioned  a  lieutenant  in  the 
United  States  Army  by  Secretary  Stanton,  procured  several  muskets 
and  drilled  the  men-servants  of  the  house  in  the  manual  of  arms 
without  attracting  the  attention  of  his  father.  And  one  night  he 
put  them  all  on  duty,  relieving  the  regular  sentries,  who,  seeing  the 


'ri^l?^^'^^-^-^--' 


5J'?"<^??''?/'??^^'>^'W^^^"^^^^^^<^'^/W^<^^^//^ 


Eg- 


THE  FAVORITE  PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN  AND   "TAD" 
They  were  looking  at  an  album  in  the  photograph  gallery  instead  of  Bible,  as  is  sometimes  stated. 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED 


6ii 


lad  in  full  uniform,  or  perhaps,  appreciating  the  joke,  gladly  went 
to  their  quarters.  His  brother  objected ;  but  Tad  insisted  upon  his 
rights  as  an  officer.  The  President  laughed  but  declined  to  inter- 
fere, but  when  the  lad 
had  lost  his  little  au- 
thority in  his  boyish 
sleep,  the  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  of  the  United 
States  went  down  and 
personally  discharged  the 
sentries  his  son  had  put 
on  the  post. 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and 
Stories.  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K. 
McClure,  page  iSi 

Lincoln  and  Three  "Soldier 
Boys" 

A  story  is  told  of  his 
interview  with  WilHam 
Scott,  a  boy  from  a  Ver- 
mont farm,  \\"ho,  after 
marching  forty-eight 
hours  without  sleep,  vol- 
unteered to  stand  guard 
for  a  sick  comrade.  (See 
"  The  Sleeping  Sentinel,  " 

pages  483-5.)      Weariness        Frum   the   original   pliotuuraph    in    tlK'    c^.lK'itiMn    mi     Isaac 

overcame  him,  and  he 
was  found  asleep  at  his 
post,  within  gunshot  of  the  enemy.  He  was  tried  and  sentenced 
to  be  shot.  Mr.  Lincoln  heard  of  the  case,  and  went  himself  to  the 
tent  where  young  Scott  was  kept  under  guard.  He  talked  to  him 
kindly,  asking  about  his  home,  his  schoolmates,  and  particularly 
about  his  mother.  The  lad  took  her  picture  from  his  pocket,  and 
showed  it  to  him  without  speaking.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  much 
affected.  As  he  rose  to  leave  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  prisoner's 
shoulder. 

"My  boy, "  he  said,  "you  are  not  going  to  be  shot  to-morrow. 


Frum   tlic   original    iiliotuuraph    in    tlu' 
Markens,  Esq. 

LIEUTENANT  TAD  LINCOLN 


6i2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

I  believe  you  when  you  tell  me  that  you  could  not  keep  awake, 
I  am  going  to  trust  you  and  send  you  back  to  your  regiment.  Now, 
I  want  to  know  ^^•hat  you  intend  to  pay  for  all  this? " 

The  lad,  overcome  with  gratitude,  could  hardly  say  a  word,  but, 
crowding  down  his  emotions,  managed  to  answer  that  he  did  not 
know.  He  and  his  people  were  poor;  they  would  do  what  they 
could.  There  was  his  pay,  and  a  little  in  the  savings  bank.  They 
could  borrow  something  by  a  mortgage  on  the  farm.  Perhaps  his 
comrades  would  help.  If  Mr.  Lincoln  would  wait  until  pay  day 
possibly  they  might  get  together  five  or  six  hundred  dollars.  Would 
that  be  enough?     The  kindly  President  shook  his  head. 

"My  bill  is  a  great  deal  more  than  that,"  he  said.  "It  is  a 
very  large  one.  Your  friends  cannot  pay  it,  nor  your  family,  nor 
your  farm.  There  is  only  one  man  in  the  world  \\ho  can  pay  it,  and 
his  name  is  William  Scott.  If  from  this  day  he  does  his  duty  so 
that  when  he  comes  to  die  he  can  truly  say,  'I  have  kept  the  promise 
I  gave  the  President.  I  have  done  my  duty  as  a  soldier, '  then  the 
debt  will  be  paid.  " 

Young  Scott  went  back  to  his  regiment,  and  the  debt  was 
fully  paid  a  few  months  later,  for  he  fell  in  battle. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  own  son  became  a  soldier  after  leaving  college. 
The  letter  his  father  wrote  to  General  Grant  in  his  behalf  shows  how 
careful  he  was  that  neither  his  official  position  nor  his  desire  to  give 
his  boy  the  experience  he  wanted,  should  work  the  least  injustice  to 
others. 

"Executive  Mansion, 
"Washington,  January  19,  1865. 
''Lieutenant-General  Grant: 

"Please  read  and  answer  this  letter  as  though  I  was  not  Presi- 
dent, but  only  a  friend.  My  son,  now  in  his  twenty-second  year, 
having  graduated  at  Harvard,  wishes  to  see  something  of  the  War 
before  it  ends.  I  do  not  wish  to  put  him  in  the  ranks,  nor  yet  to 
give  him  a  commission  to  \^■hich  those  who  have  already  served 
long  are  better  entitled,  and  better  qualified  to  hold.  Could  he, 
without  embarrassment  to  you,  or  detriment  to  the  service,  go  into 
your  military  family  with  some  nominal  rank,  I,  and  not  the  public, 
furnishing  the  necessary  means?     If  no,  say  so  without  the  least 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  613 

hesitation,  because  I  am  as  anxious  and  as  deeply  interested  that 
you  shall  not  be  encumbered  as  you  can  be  yourself. 

"Yours  truly, 

"A.  Lincoln." 

His  interest  did  not  cease  with  the  life  of  a  young  soldier. 
Among  his  most  beautiful  letters  are  those  he  wrote  to  sorrowing 
parents  who  had  lost  their  sons  in  battle;  and  when  his  personal 
friend,  young  Ellsworth,  one  of  the  first  and  most  gallant  to  fall, 
was  killed  at  Alexandria,  the  President  directed  that  his  body  be 
brought  to  the  White  House,  where  his  funeral  was  held  in  the  great 
East  Room. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  216. 

[Note. — Robert  Lincoln  became  his  widowed  mother's  reli- 
ance and  comforter  during  the  long  years  of  her  great  bereavement 
and  affliction,  and  superintended  his  young  brother  Tad's  education. 
He  was  Secretary  of  War  from  1881-85,  and  United  States  Minister 
to  England,  1889-93.— W.W.] 

The  Hampton  Roads  Conference  as  Reported  "Down  South" 

The  Hampton  Roads  Conference,  at  which  the  North  was 
represented  by  Lincoln  and  Seward  and  the  South  by  Stephens, 
Campbell  and  Hunter,  took  place  on  February  3,  1865,  in  the  saloon 
of  the  steamer  which  had  brought  the  President  of  the  United 
States  to  Fortress  Monroe. 

The  discussion  was  preceded  by  friendly  reminiscences  of  former 
acquaintance  and  association,  Lincoln  responding  to  Stephens's 
remarks  in  a  "  cheerful  and  cordial  manner.  "  It  is  even  related  that 
Lincoln  was  ready  with  his  inevitable  joke.  Observing  the  slender 
Stephens  removing  his  great  coat  and  muffler,  he  remarked  that  the 
Georgian  was  the  ' '  smallest  nubbin  to  come  out  of  so  much  husk ' ' 
that  he  ever  beheld.  Stephens  does  not  mention  this  in  his  own 
account,  but  he  refers  to  a  characteristic  anecdote  told  by  Lincoln 
during  the  Conference. 

When  the  evils  of  immediate  emancipation  were  adverted  to — 
m  case  that  policy  should  be  pressed — especially  the  sufferings  of 
the'  women  and  children  and  the  old  and  infirm  slaves  who  would 
not  be  able  to  support  themselves,  Lincoln  admitted  the  difficulty, 
but  in  order  not  to  commit  himself  directly  while  yet  suggesting 


6 14  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


his  individual  view,  he  said  that  at  the  moment  he  felt  at  liberty  only 
to  tell  the  story  of  the  Illinois  farmer  and  his  hogs. 

The  successful  policy  of  this  farmer,  as  the  story  revealed,  was 
not  to  pen  his  hogs  and  provide  food  for  them,  but  to  turn  them  out 
and  "let  'em  root!" 

This  was  precisely  the  policy  that  finally  prevailed,  although 
great  numbers  of  idling  negroes  long  waited  in  vain  for  the  "  forty 
acres  and  a  mule"  that  had  been  promised  them  by  irresponsible 
carpet-baggers. 

Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Louis  Pendleton,  page  332. 

An  Unfortunate  Precedent  to  Cite 

Jefferson  Davis  insisted  on  being  recognized  as  President  of 
the  Confederacy  in  negotiating  with  the  United  States  Government 
at  the  Hampton  Roads  Conference. 

Mr.  Hunter,  one  of  the  Confederate  commissioners,  referred  to 
the  correspondence  between  Charles  the  First  and  his  Parliament 
as  a  precedent  for  this  negotiation  between  a  constitutional  ruler 
and  rebels. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  face  wore  that  indescribable  expression  which 
generally  preceded  his  hardest  hits,  and  he  remarked : 

"Upon  questions  of  history  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward, 
for  he  is  posted  in  such  things,  and  I  don't  profess  to  be ;  but  my 
only  distinct  recollection  of  the  matter  is,  that  Charles  lost  his  head." 

"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  1 20. 

Lincoln  StUl  Willing  to  Buy  All  the  Slaves 

It  is  said  that  after  the  Hampton  Roads  Conference,  Lincoln 
took  Alexander  H.  Stephens  aside,  and,  showing  him  a  sheet  of 
paper,  he  said : 

"  Stephens,  let  me  write  'Union '  at  the  top  of  that  page,  and  you 
may  write  below  it  whatever  else  you  please. " 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  with  him  to  Hampton  Roads  tr\vo  documents 
that  are  still  shown  in  his  own  handwriting;  one  of  them  a  joint 
resolution  to  be  passed  by  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  appropriating 
the  four  hundred  millions,  the  other  a  proclamation  to  be  issued  by 
himself,  as  President,  when  the  joint  resolution  should  have  been 
passed. 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  615 

Mr.  Lincoln  next  day,  after  returning  to  Washington,  submitted 
these  two  documents  to  the  members  of  his  Cabinet.  All  but  Mr. 
Seward  were  against  him.     So  he  said: 

"Gentlemen,  how  long  is  the  War  going  to  last?  It  will  not 
end  in  less  than  a  hundred  days,  will  it?  It  costs  now  four  millions 
a  day.  That  will  be  four  hundred  millions,  over  and  above  the  loss 
of  life  and  property.  But  you  seem  to  be  against  it,  so  I  will  not 
urge  this  matter  further.  " 

From  a  Report  at  the  time. 

"It  Was  the  Baby  That  Did  It" 

"Late  one  afternoon  the  President  was  going  through  the 
passage  to  his  private  room  to  get  a  cup  of  tea.  On  the  way  he 
heard  a  baby  cry.  He  instantly  went  back  to  his  office  and  rang 
the  bell. 

"  'Daniel,'  said  he,  'is  there  a  woman  with  a  baby  in  the 
anteroom  ? ' 

"I  said  there  was,  .  .  .  and  it  was  a  case  of  life  and  death. 
Said  he : 

"  'Send  her  to  me  at  once.' 

"She  went  in,  told  her  story,  and  the  President  pardoned  her 
husband.  As  the  woman  came  out  from  his  presence,  the  tears 
streaming  down  her  cheeks,  and  her  lips  moving  in  prayer,  I  went 
up  to  her,  and,  pulling  her  shawl,  said : 

"  'Madam,  it  was  the  baby  that  did  it.'  " 

Related  by  a  White  House  messenger  to  F,  B,  Carpenter,  Six  Months  at  the  White  House 
page  132. 

Orders  a  Well  Pumped  out  to  Recover  a  Lost  Plaything  for  Tad 

The  fire-engine,  Hibernia,  and  some  of  its  company  went  from 
Philadelphia  to  Washington  during  the  War  and  remained  at  the 
Capital  for  some  time  to  be  in  readiness  for  any  emergency. 

Tad  Lincoln,  in  playing  around  the  White  House,  lost  his  ball, 
or  some  other  toy,  down  a  well.  The  President,  with  his  custom- 
ary indulgence,  wrote  the  accompanying  note  to  the  chief  engineer 
of  the  Hibernia  to  come  and  pump  out  the  well  and  restore  to  the 
"child  of  the  nation"  his  lost  plaything.     This  was  attended  to 


(5i6 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


with  cheerful   alacrity.     This    characteristic    request  was  written 
only  six  weeks  before  the  fatal  fourteenth  of  April, 
w.  w. 


From  original  in  possession  of  Judd  Stewart,  Esq, 

THE  PRESIDENT'S  CARD  TO  THE  ENGINEER  OF  THE  FIRE-ENGINE 

"  HIBERNIA  " 

The  Second  Inaugural 

At  the  horizon  of  that  applauding  multitude  were  arrayed 
those  battalions  which  Grant  had  summoned  for  the  campaign 
about  to  open,  and  among  them  several  negro  companies.  Between 
these  lines  of  men  and  the  columns  which  upheld  the  platform,  the 
eye  met  a  compact  mass,  the  aspect  of  which  was  rough  and 
energetic;  in  its  midst  stood  a  multitude  of  negroes  but  yesterday 
freed,  and  for  the  first  time  admitted  to  take  part  in  a  national 
solemnity. 

When  the  hurrahs  had  ceased,  Mr.  Lincoln  began  reading  his 
address,  and  hardly  had  he  read  the  first  sentence,  when  none  could 
question  its  immense  success. 

The  utterance,  in  almost  a  religious  manner,  of  his  thought, 
seemed  to  speak  out  the  very  sentiments  of  all  his  listeners,  and  the 
condemnation  of  slavery  which  he  was  pronouncing,  intermitted 
here  and  there  with  Biblical  quotations,  seemed  tinged  with  some- 
thing of  the  eloquence  of  the  prophets. 

•'Fondly  do  we  hope,"  he  concluded,  "fervently  do  we  pray, 


RENOMINATED,  ELECTED,  INAUGURATED  617 

that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if 
God  wills  that  it  continue  until  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's 
two  himdred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and 
that  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still 
it  must  be  said,  'The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous 
altogether.' 

"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in 
the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish 
the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds,  to  care  for  him 
who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphan — 
to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  lasting  peace  among  our- 
selves and  with  all  nations.  " 

As  Mr.  Lincoln  was  thus  invoking  the  aid  of  the  Almighty  on 
behalf  of  the  holy  cause  he  was  defending,  little  did  he  know  how 
near  his  eloquent  prayer  was  being  granted. 

Personal  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  The  Marquis  de  Chambrun.     Scribner's  Magazine,  Vol.  XIII, 
January,  1893,  page  26. 

A  Sunburst  when  Lincoln  Took  the  Oath  of  Office 

While  the  ceremonies  of  the  second  Inauguration  were  in  pro- 
gress, just  as  Lincoln  stepped  forward  to  take  the  oath  of  office,  the 
sun,  which  had  been  obscured  by  rain-clouds,  burst  forth  in  splendor. 

Reminiscences,  Noah  Brooks  in  Stories  and  Speeches  oj  Abraham  Lincoln,  page  165. 

Chase  Holds  the  Book  as  Douglas  Held  Lincoln's  Hat  Four  Years  before 

Three  months  after  the  appointment  [of  Chase  to  the  Chief- 
Justiceship  of  the  Supreme  Court]  Lincoln  entered  the  Eastern 
Portico  of  the  Capitol  for  his  second  Inauguration.  If  his  thoughts, 
as  he  stepped  upon  the  platform,  reverted  to  the  incidents  of  that 
other  ceremony  which  had  taken  place  on  the  same  spot,  just  four 
years  before,  he  may  have  missed  the  defeated  rival,  who  then  came 
forward  to  hold  the  President's  hat  while  he  took  the  oath  of  office. 
Douglas,  indeed,  had  closed  his  last  earthly  canvass;  but  another 
proud  opponent  of  the  victorious  Magistrate  stood  beside  him,  as  if 
to  take  the  "  Little  Giant's"  place.  It  was  Salmon  P.  Chase.  By 
virtue  of  his  new  office,  he  administered  the  oath  and  held  the  book 
for  Abraham  Lincoln  to  kiss. 

Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  Alonzo  Rothschild,  page  321, 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

The  End  of  the  War 

After  the  Inaugural  Ceremonies 

March  4  (1865),  the  President  very  quietly  rode  down  to  the 
Capitol  in  his  own  carriage,  by  himself,  on  a  sharp  trot,  about  noon, 
either  because  he  wished  to  be  on  hand  to  sign  bills  or  to  get  rid  of 
marching  in  line  with  the  absurd  procession,  the  muslin  temple  of 
liberty,  and  pasteboard  monitor.  I  saw  him  on  his  return,  at  three 
o'clock,  after  the  performance  was  over.  He  was  in  his  plain  two- 
horse  barouche,  and  looked  very  much  worn  and  tired;  the  lines, 
indeed,  of  vast  responsibilities,  intricate  questions,  and  demands  of 
life  and  death,  cut  deeper  than  ever  upon  his  dark  brown  face ;  yet 
all  the  old  goodness,  tenderness,  sadness,  and  canny  shrewdness, 
underneath  the  furrows.  (I  never  see  that  man  without  feeling  that 
he  is  one  to  be  attached  to,  for  his  combination  of  purest,  heartiest 
tenderness,  and  native  Western  form  of  manliness.)  By  his  side 
sat  his  little  boy  of  ten  years.  There  were  no  soldiers,  only  a  lot  of 
civilians  on  horseback,  with  huge  yellow  scarfs  over  their  shoulders, 
riding  around  the  carriage.  (At  the  inauguration  four  years  ago, 
he  rode  down  and  back  again  surrounded  by  a  dense  mass  of  armed 
cavalrymen,  eight  deep,  with  drawn  sabres ;  and  there  were  sharp- 
shooters stationed  at  every  corner  along  the  route.)  I  ought  to 
make  mention  of  the  closing  levee  of  Saturday  night  last.  Never 
before  was  such  a  compact  jam  in  front  of  the  White  House;  all 
the  grounds  filled,  and  away  out  to  the  spacious  sidewalks.  I  was 
there,  as  I  took  a  notion  to  go — was  in  the  rush  inside  with  the 
crowd — surged  along  the  passage-ways,  the  Blue  and  other  rooms, 
and  through  the  great  East  Room,  Crowds  of  country  people,  some 
very  funny.  Fine  music  from  the  Marine  Band.  Off  in  a  side  place 
I  saw  Mr.  Lincoln,  dressed  in  black,  with  white  gloves  and  a  claw- 
hammer coat,  receiving,  as  in  duty  bound,  shaking  hands,  looking 
very  disconsolate,  and  as  if  he  would  give  anything  to  be  some- 
where else. 

specimen  Days,  Walt  Whitman.     Complete  Prose  Works,  page  63. 

C618) 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR 


619 


Anna  Dickinson  and  the  Sunbeam 

In  conversation  the  next  day,  the  President  asked : 

"  Did  you  notice  that  sun- 
burst?" [As  Lincoln  was  about  to 
take  the  oath.]  "It  made  my  heart 
jump." 

Later  in  the  month,  Miss  Anna 
Dickinson,  in  a  lecture  delivered  in 
the  hall  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, eloquently  alluded  to  the  sun- 
burst as  a  happy  omen.  The  Presi- 
dent sat  directly  in  front  of  the 
speaker,  and  from  the  reporters '  gal- 
lery behind  her  I  had  caught  his  eye 
soon  after  he  sat  down.  When  Miss 
Dickinson  referred  to  the  sunbeam, 
he  looked  up  to  me,  involuntarily, 
and  I  thought  his  eyes  were  suffused 
with  moisture.  Perhaps  they  were; 
but  the  next  day  he  said : 

"  I  wonder  if  Miss  Dickinson  saw  me  wink  at  you? " 

Reminiscences,  Noah  Brooks,  as  quoted  in  Stories  and  Spcecltcs  of  Abraham  Lincoln    Paul  Selby, 
page  166. 

Sewing  a  Button  on  His  Trousers 

One  of  the  President's  life-guard  who  was  on  duty  early  in  1865, 
saw  much  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  day  and  night,  for  several  months. 

Early  one  morning  he  tapped  on  the  President's  bed-room  door. 
To  his  surprise  he  found  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in 
dishabille  and  carpet  slippers,  sewing  a  button  on  his  trousers. 
With  a  twinkle,  Mr.  Lincoln  exclaimed : 

"  All  right.     Just  wait  a  minute  while  I  repair  damages. " 
w.  w. 


ANNA  DICKINSON 


"There  Was  Such  a  Charm  about  His  Expression" 

The  relations  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the  members  of  his 
Cabinet  were  always  friendly  and  sincere  on  his  part.  He  treated 
every  one  of  them  with  unvarying  candor,  respect,  and  kindness; 
but,  though  several  of  them  w^ere  men  of  extraordinary  force  and 
self-assertion — this  was  true  especially  of  Mr.  Seward,  Mr.  Chase, 


620  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


and  Mr.  Stanton — and  though  there  was  nothing  of  selfhood  or 
domination  in  his  manner  toward  them,  it  was  always  plain  that  he 
was  the  master  and  they  the  subordinates.  They  constantly  had 
to  yield  to  his  will  in  questions  where  responsibility  fell  upon  him. 
If  he  ever  yielded  to  theirs,  it  was  because  they  convinced  him  that 
the  course  they  advised  was  judicious  and  appropriate.  I  fancied 
during  the  whole  time  of  my  intimate  intercourse  with  him  and 
with  them  that  he  was  always  prepared  to  receive  the  resignation  of 

any  one  of  them He  was  calm,  equable,  uncomplaining. 

In  the  discussion  of  important  questions,  whatever  he  said  showed 
the  profoimdest  thought,  even  when  he  was  joking.  He  seemed  to 
see  every  side  of  every  question.  He  was  never  impatient,  he 
never  was  in  a  hurry,  and  he  never  tried  to  hurry  anybody  else. 
To  every  one  he  was  pleasant  and  cordial.  Yet  they  all  felt  it  was 
his  word  that  went  at  last;  that  every  case  was  open  until  he 
gave  his  decision. 

This  impression  of  authority,  of  reserve  force,  Mr.  Lincoln 
always  gave  to  those  about  him.  Even  physically  he  was  impres- 
sive. According  to  the  record  measurements,  he  was  six  feet  four 
inches  in  height.  That  is,  he  w^as  at  least  four  inches  taller  than  the 
tall,  ordinary  man.  When  he  rode  out  on  horseback  to  review  an 
army,  as  I  have  frequently  seen  him  do,  he  wore  usually  a  high  hat, 
and  then  he  looked  like  a  giant.  There  was  no  waste  or  excess  of 
material  about  his  frame;  nevertheless,  he  was  very  strong  and 
muscular 

Mr.  Lincoln's  face  w^as  thin,  and  his  features  were  large.  His 
hair  was  black,  his  eyebrows  heavy,  his  forehead  square  and  well 
developed.  His  complexion  was  dark  and  quite  sallow.  His 
smile  was  something  most  lovely.  I  have  never  seen  a  woman's 
smile  that  approached  it  in  its  engaging  quality ;  nor  have  I  ever 
seen  another  face  which  would  light  up  as  Mr.  Lincoln's  did  when 
something  touched  his  heart  or  amused  him.  I  have  heard  it  said 
that  he  was  ungainly,  that  his  step  was  awkward.  He  never  im- 
pressed me  as  being  awkward.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  such 
a  charm  and  beauty  about  his  expression,  such  good  humor  and 
friendly  spirit  looking  from  his  eyes,  that  when  you  were  near  him 
you  never  thought  whether  he  was  awkw^ard  or  graceful ;  you 
thought  of  nothing  except :  What  a  kindly  character  this  man  has ! 
Then,  too,  there  was  such  shrewdness  in  his  kindly  features  that  one 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR 


621 


did  not  care  to  criticise  him.  His  manner  was  always  dignified, 
and  even  if  he  had  done  an  awkward  thing  the  dignity  of  his  char- 
acter would  have  made  it  seem  graceful  and  becoming.      .    .    . 

The  great  quality  of  his  appearance  was  benevolence  and 
benignity;  the  wish  to  do  somebody  some  good  if  he  could;  and 
yet  there  was  no  flabby  philanthropy  about  Abraham  Lincoln. 
He  was  all  solid,  hard,  keen  intelligence  combined  with  goodness. 
Indeed,  the  expression  of  his  face  and  of  his  bearing  w^hich  impressed 
one  most,  after  his  benevolence  and  benignity,  was  his  intelligent 
understanding.  You  felt  that  here  was  a  man  who  saw  through 
things,  who  understood,  and  you  respected  him  accordingly. 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  Charles  A.  Dana,  page  171- 

Senator  Sumner  Tells  of  Lincoln's  Love  for  "Nasby's  Letters" 

I  had  occasion  to  see  President  Lincoln  very  late  in  the  evening 
of  March  17,  1865.  The  interview  was  in  the  familiar  room 
known  as  his  olBce,  and  also  used  for  Cabinet  meetings.  I  did  not 
take  leave  of  him  until  some  time 
after  midnight,  and  the  business  was 
not  entirely  finished.  As  I  rose,  he 
said: 

"Come  to  me  when  I  open  shop 
in  the  morning ;  I  will  have  the  order 
written,  and  you  shall  see  it.  " 

* '  When  do  you  open  shop  ? ' '  said  I . 

"At  nine  o'clock,  "  he  replied. 

At  the  hour  named  I  was  in  the 
same  room  that  I  had  so  recently 
left.  Very  soon  the  President  entered, 
stepping  quickly  with  the  promised 
order  in  his  hand,  which  he  at  once 
read  to  me.  It  was  to  disapprove 
and  annul  the  judgment  and  sentence 
of  a  court-martial  in  a  case  that  had 
excited  much  feeling.  While  I  was 
making  an  abstract  of  the  order  for 
communication    by   telegraph    to  the 

anxious  parties,  he  broke  into  a  quotation  from  Nasby.  Finding 
me  less  at  home  than  himself  with  his  favorite  humorist,  he  said 


62  2  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


pleasantly,  "I  must  initiate  you,"  and  then  repeated  with  enthu- 
siasm the  message  he  had  sent  to  the  author : 

"  For  the  genius  to  write  these  things  I  would  gladly  give  up 
my  office. " 

Rising  from  his  seat,  he  opened  a  desk  behind,  and,  taking 
from  it  a  pamphlet  collection  of  the  ("Nasby")  "Letters"  already 
published,  proceeded  to  read  from  it  with  infinite  zest  while  his 
melancholy  features  grew  bright.  It  was  a  delight  to  see  him 
surrender  so  completely  to  the  fascination.  Finding  that  I 
listened,  he  read  for  more  than  twenty  minutes,  and  was  still 
proceeding,  when  it  occurred  to  me  that  there  must  be  many 
at  the  door  waiting  to  see  him  on  graver  matters.  Taking  ad- 
vantage of  a  pause,  I  rose,  and,  thanking  him  for  the  lesson  of 
the  morning,  went  away.  Some  thirty  persons,  including  senators 
and  representatives,  were  in  the  antechamber  as  I  passed  out. 

Introduction  to  The  Struggles  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  Charles  Sumner,  page  14. 

A  Great  Wrong  to  Lincoln's  Memory 

Dr.  Holland,  in  his  "Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  I  regret  to 
observe,  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  notice  the  reports,  which  in 
one  way  and  another  have  obtained  circulation,  that  the  President 
habitually  indulged,  in  ordinary  conversation,  in  a  class  of  objec- 
tionable stories.  The  biographer,  it  is  true,  attempts  to  palliate 
this,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  no  innate  love  of  impurity  which 
prompted  such  relations,  but  a  keen  relish  for  wit,  in  any  form,  the 
lack  of  refining  influence  in  early  life,  and  his  experience  as  a  lawyer, 
which  necessarily  induced  professional  familiarity  with  the  foulest 
phases  of  human  nature 

Mr.  Lincoln,  I  am  convinced,  has  been  greatly  wronged  in  this 
respect.  Every  foul-mouthed  man  in  the  country  gave  currency 
to  the  slime  and  filth  of  his  own  imagination  by  attributing  it  to 
the  President.  It  is  but  simple  justice  to  his  memory  that  I  should 
state  that,  during  the  entire  period  of  my  stay  in  Washington,  after 
witnessing  his  intercourse  with  nearly  all  classes  of  men,  embracing 
governors,  senators,  members  of  Congress,  officers  of  the  army,  and 
intimate  friends,  I  cannot  recollect  to  have  heard  him  relate  a 
circumstance  to  any  of  them  which  would  have  been  out  of  place 
uttered  in  a  ladies'  drawing-room.  And  this  testimony  is  not 
unsupported  by  that  of  others,  well  entitled  to  consideration.     Dr. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  623 


Stone,  his  family  physician,  came  in  one  day  to  see  my  studies. 
Sitting  in  front  of  that  of  the  President, — with  whom  he  did  not 
sympathize  poHtically, — he  remarked,  with  much  feeling: 

"It  is  the  province  of  a  physician  to  probe  deeply  the  interior 
lives  of  men;  and  I  afhrm  that  Mr.  Lincoln  is  the  purest  hearted 
man  with  whom  I  ever  came  in  contact.  " 

Secretary  Seward,  who  of  the  Cabinet  officers  was  most  intimate 
with  the  President,  expressed  the  same  sentiment  in  still  stronger 
language.     He  once  said  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Bellows: 

"Mr.  Lincoln  is  the  best  man  I  ever  knew!" 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  79- 

Advises  Stanton  about  a  Wrathful  Letter 

One  day  Secretary  Stanton  came  to  him  with  a  wrathful  letter 
written  to  a  Major-General  who  had  accused  him  of  favoritism. 
While  Stanton  was  reading  the  letter,  which  was  full  of  sharp  retorts, 
Lincoln  interrupted  him  with  favorable  comments  such  as : 

"That's  right;  give  it  to  him,  Stanton!" — "Just  what  he 
deserves!"— "Prick  him  hard !"—" Score  him!"— "That's  first 
rate!" — "Good  for  you!" — and  so  on. 

While  Stanton,  much  gratified,  was  folding  up  the  letter  and 
putting  it  into  its  envelope,  the  President  asked  him : 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it  now? " 

"Why,  send  it,  of  course,  "  replied  Stanton,  looking  blank. 

"  Don't  do  it,  "  said  Lincoln,  laughing. 

"But  you  said  it  was  just  what  he  deserved,"  demurred  the 
Secretary. 

"Yes,  I  believe  he  does  deserve  it,  but  you  don't  want  to  send 

such  a  letter  as  that.     Put  in  it  the  stove!     That's  the  way  I  do  when 

I  have  written  a  letter  while  I  am  mad.     It  is  a  good  letter,  and  you 

have  had  a  good  time  writing  it,  and  you  feel  better,  don't  you? 

It  has  done  you  good  and  answered  its  purpose.     Now  hum  it!'' 
w.  w. 

"God  Bless  the  "Women  of  America!" 

A  fair  for  the  benefit  of  the  soldiers,  held  at  the  Patent  Office, 
Washington,  called  out  Mr.  Lincoln  as  an  interested  visitor;  and 
he  was  not  permitted  to  retire  without  giving  a  word  to  those  in 
3,ttendance. 


624  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"In  this  extraordinary  War,"  said  he,  "extraordinary  devel- 
opments have  manifested  themselves,  such  as  have  not  been  seen  in 
former  wars;  and  among  these  manifestations  nothing  has  been 
more  remarkable  than  these  fairs  for  the  relief  of  suffering  soldiers 
and  their  families.  And  the  chief  agents  in  these  fairs  are  the 
women  of  America. 

"  I  am  not  accustomed  to  use  the  language  of  eulogy ;  I  have 
never  studied  the  art  of  paying  compliments  to  women ;  but  L 
must  say  that  if  all  that  has  been  said  by  orators  and  poets  since 
the  creation  of  the  world,  in  praise  of  women,  were  applied  to  the 
women  of  America,  it  would  not  do  them  justice  for  their  conduct 
during  the  War.     I  will  close  by  saying : 

"  God  bless  the  women  of  America ! " 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  17*. 

"Nothing  Like  Getting  Used  to  Things" 

A  recent  number  of  the  New  York  Tribune  contained  an 
account,  from  a  correspondent  within  the  Rebel  lines,  of  an  elabo- 
rate conspiracy,  matured  in  Richmond,  to  abduct  or  assassinate — if 
the  former  were  found  impracticable — the  person  of  the  President. 
A  secret  organization,  composed,  it  was  stated,  of  500  or  1,000  men, 
had  solemnly  sworn  to  accomplish  the  deed. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  seen  or  heard  of  this  account,  so  at  his 
request  I  gave  him  the  details.  Upon  the  conclusion,  he  smiled 
incredulously  and  said: 

"  Well,  even  if  true,  I  do  not  see  what  the  Rebels  would  gain  by 
killing  or  getting  possession  of  me.  I  am  but  a  single  individual, 
and  it  would  not  help  their  cause  or  make  the  least  difference  in  the 
progress  of  the  War.     Everything  would  go  right  on  just  the  same. 

"  Soon  after  I  was  nominated  at  Chicago,  I  began  to  receive 
letters  threatening  my  life.  The  first  one  or  two  made  me  a  little 
uncomfortable,  but  I  came  at  length  to  look  for  a  regular  instalment 
of  this  kind  of  correspondence  in  every  week's  mail,  and  up  to 
Inauguration  Day  I  was  in  constant  receipt  of  such  letters.  It  is 
uncommon  thing  to  receive  them  now;  but  they  have  ceased  to 
give  me  any  apprehension.  " 

I  expressed  some  surprise  at  this,  but  he  replied  in  his  peculiar 

way: 

"  Oh,  there  is  nothing  like  getting  tised  to  things. " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  62. 


THE  END  OF  TH^WAR 


625 


Grant  Captures  Richmond  and  Intercepts  Lee's  Army 

Jefferson  Davis  had  issued  a  last  appeal  to  "fire  the  Southern 
heart,"  but  the  situation  at  Richmond  was  becoming  desperate. 
Flour  cost  a  thousand  dollars  a  barrel  in  Confederate  money,  and 
neither  the  flour  nor  the  money  was  sufficient  for  their  needs. 
Squads  of  guards  were  sent  into  the  streets  with  directions  to  arrest 
every  able-bodied  man 
they  met,  and  force 
him  to  work  in  defense 
of  the  town.  It  is  said 
that  the  medicalboards 
were  ordered  to 
excuse  no  one  from 
military  service  who 
was  well  enough  to 
bear  arms  for  even 
ten  days.  Human  na- 
ture will  not  endure  a 
strain  like  this,  and 
desertion  grew  too 
common  to  punish. 

Nevertheless  the 
city  kept  up  its  defense 
until  April  3 .  ... 
The  Rebel  Government 
hurried  away  toward 
the  South,  and  Lee 
bent  all  his  energies  to 
saving  his  army  and 
taking  it  to  j  oin  General 
Johnston,  who  still  held 
out  a^jainst  Sherman. 

Grant  pursued  him  with  such  energy  that  he  did  not  even  allow 
himself  the  pleasure  of  entering  the  captured  Rebel  capital.  The 
chase  continued  six  days.  On  the  evening  of  April  8  the  Union 
army  succeeded  in  planting  itself  squarely  across  Lee's  line  of  re- 
treat; and  the  marching  and  fighting  of  his  army  were  over 
forever.     .    .    .    , 


JEFFERSON  DAVIS  AT  THE  CLOSE  OF  THE  WAR 


f? 


626  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  IJNCOTN 

Fire  and  destruction  attended  the  flight  of  the  Confederates 
from  Richmond.  Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Cabinet,  carrying  with 
them  their  more  important  state  papers,  left  the  doomed  city  on 
one  of  the  crowded  and  overloaded  railroad  trains  on  the  night  of 
April  2,  beginning  a  southward  flight  that  ended  only  with  Mr. 
Davis's  capture  about  a  month  later. 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Helen  Nicolay,  page  271. 

"I  Am  Troubled  about  the  Negroes" 

Being  then  in  Washington,  the  President  sent  for  the  writer, 
and  said:       '  ■ 

"General  Biitler,  I  am  troubled  about  the  negroes.  We  are 
soon  to  have  peace.  We  have  got  some  one  hundred  and  odd 
thousand  negroes  who  have  been  trained  to  arms.  When  peace 
shall  come  I  fear  lest  these  colored  men  shall  organize  themselves 
in  the  South,  especially  in  the  States  where  the  negroes  are  in  pre- 
ponderance in  numbers,  into  guerrilla  parties,  and  we  shall  have 
down  there  a  warfare  between  the  whites  and  the  negroes.  In  the 
course  of  reconstruction  of  the  Government  it  will  becone  a  question 
of  how  the  negro  is  to  be  disposed  of.  Would  it  not  be  possible  to 
export  them  to  some  place,  say  Liberia,  or  South  Am.erica,  and 
organize  th^j^  into  communities  to  support  themselves?  Now, 
General,   I  wish  you  would   examine   the    practicability  of  such 

exportation Will  you  givje  this  your  attention,  and, 

at  as  early  a  day  as  possible,  report  to  me  your  views  upon  the 
subject?" 

I  replied,  "Willingly,"  and  bowed  and  retired. 

After  some  few  days  ....  I  repaired  to  the  President's 
offlce  in  the  morning  and  said  to  him, 

"  I  have  come  to  report  to  you  on  the  question  you  have  sub- 
mitted to  me,  Mr.  President. "      .... 

He  exhibited  great  interest,  and  said,  "  Well,  what  do  you  think 
of  it?" 

I  said,  "  Mr.  President,  I  assume  that  if  the  negro  is  to  be  sent 
away  on  shipboard  you  do  not  propose  to  enact  the  horrors  of  the 
middle  passage,  but  would  give  the  negroes  the  air-space  that  the 
law  provides  for  emigrants?" 

He  said,  "Certainly." 

"Well,  then,  here  are  some  calculations  which  will  show  you 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  627 

that  if  you  undertake  to  export  all  of  the  negroes — and  I  do  not  see 
how  you  can  take  one  portion  differently  from  another — negro 
children  will  be  born  faster  than  your  whole  naval  and  merchant 
vessels,  if  substantially  all  of  them  were  devoted  to  that  use,  can 
carry  them  from  the  country."      .... 

He  examined  my  tables  carefully  for  some  considerable  time, 
and  then  looked  up  sadly  and  said : 

"Your  deductions  seem  to  be  correct,  General.  But  what  can 
we  do?" 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Benjamin  P.  Butler.  Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  1 50. 

A  Strange  Triumphal  Entry  into  a  Conquered  Capital 

.  .  .  There  was  a  small  house  on  the  landing,  and  behind  it 
were  some  twelve  negroes  digging  with  spades.     Their  leader  was 

an  old  man He  raised  himself  to  an  upright  position 

as  we  landed  and  put  his  hands  up  to  his  eyes.  Then  he  dropped 
his  spade  and  sprang  forward. 

"  Bress  de  Lord,"  he  said,  "dere  is  de  great  Messiah!  I 
knowed  him  as  soon  as  I  seed  him.  He's  been  in  my  heart  fo'  long 
yeahs,  an'  he's  cum  at  las'  to  free  his  chillun  from  deir  bondage — 
Glory,  Hallelujah!"  And  he  fell  on  his  knees  before  the  President 
and  kissed  his  feet.  The  others  followed  his  example,  and  in  a 
minute  Mr.  Lincoln  was  surrounded  by  these  people,  who  had 
treasured  up  the  recollection  of  him  caught  from  a  photograph,  and 
had  looked  up  to  him  for  four  years  as  the  one  who  was  to  lead  them 
out  of  captivity 

Mr.  Lincoln  looked  down  at  the  poor  creatures  at  his  feet ;  he 
was  much  embarrassed  at  his  position. 

"  Don't  kneel  to  me,  "  he  said.  "  That  is  not  right.  You  must 
kneel  to  God  only,  and  thank  Him  for  the  liberty  you  will  hereafter 
enjoy." 

His  face  was  lit  up  with  a  divine  look  as  he  said  these  words. 
....  In  his  enthusiasm  he  seemed  the  personification  of  manly 
beauty,  and  that  sad  face  of  his  looked  down  in  kindness  upon  these 
ignorant  blacks He  really  seemed  of  another  world.    .    .    . 

It  was  a  minute  or  two  before  I  could  get  the  negroes  to  rise 
and  leave  the  President 

"  Yes,  Massa,  "  said  the  old  man "'Scuse  us,  sir.     We 

means  no  disrespec'  to  Mass'  Lincoln;  we  means  all  love  and  grati- 


628 


THE  S'lOKY-IJFE  OF  UXCOLN 


tude. "     And  then  joining  hands  together  in  a  ring,  they  sang  a 
hymn,  beginning,  "O,  all  ye  people,  clap  your  hands!" 

The    President    and    all    of    us    listened    respectfully.     Four 


LINCOLN  ENTERING  RICHMOND,  LEADING  TAD 

minutes  at  most  had  passed  away  since  we  first  landed,  when  the 
streets  were  entirely  deserted.  .  .  .  Now  the  streets  seemed  to  be 
suddenly  alive  with  the  colored  race.     They  seemed  to  spring  from 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  629 

the  earth.  They  came  tumbHng  and  shouting  from  over  the  hill 
and  from  the  water-side,  where  no  one  was  seen  as  we  had  passed. 

The  crowd  immediately  became  very  oppressive.  We  needed 
the  marines  to  keep  them  off.  I  ordered  twelve  of  the  boat's  crew 
to  fix  bayonets  to  their  rifles  and  to  surround  the  President,  all  of 
which  was  quickly  done ;  but  the  crowd  poured  in  so  fearfully  that 
I  thought  we  all  stood  a  chance  of  being  crushed  to  death. 

I  now  realized  the  imprudence  of  landing  without  a  large  body  of 
marines;  and  yet,  this  seemed  to  me,  after  all,  the  fittest  way  for  Mr, 
Lincoln  to  come  among  the  people  he  had  redeemed  from  bondage. 

What  an  ovation  he  had,  to  be  sure! They  all 

had  their  souls  in  their  eyes,  and  I  don't  think  I  ever  looked  upon  a 
scene  where  there  were  so  many  passionately  happy  faces 

At  length  the  President  spoke.  He  could  not  move  for  the 
mass  of  people — he  had  to  do  something. 

"  My  poor  friends,  "  he  said.  "  You  are  free — free  as  air.  You 
can  cast  off  the  name  of  slave  and  trample  upon  it ;  it  will  come  to 
you  no  more.  Liberty  is  your  birthright.  God  gave  it  to  you  as 
He  gave  it  to  others,  and  it  is  a  sin  that  you  have  been  deprived  of 
it  for  so  many  years.  But  you  must  try  to  deserve  this  priceless 
boon.  Let  the  world  see  that  you  merit  it,  and  are  able  to  maintain 
it  by  your  good  works.  Don't  let  your  joy  carry  you  into  excesses. 
Learn  the  laws  and  obey  them;  obey  God's  commandments  and 
thank  Him  for  giving  you  liberty,  for  to  Him  you  owe  all  things. 
There,  now,  let  me  pass  on.  I  have  but  little  time  to  spare.  1 
want  to  see  the  Capitol,  and  must  return  at  once  to  Washington  to 
secure  you  that  liberty  which  you  seem  to  prize  so  highly. " 

Incidents  and  Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War,  Admiral  Porter,  page  295. 

At  the  "White  House  of  the  Confederacy" 

The  procession  reached  Weitzel's  headquarters — the  mansion 
from  which  Jefferson  Davis  had  taken  his  quick  departure  the  pre- 
vious Sunday. 

President  Lincoln  wearily  ascended  the  steps  and  by  chance 
dropped  into  the  very  chair  usually  occupied  by  Mr.  Davis  when 
at  his  writing  table. 

Such  was  the  entrance  of  the  Chief  of  the  Republic  into  the 
Capital  of  the  late  Confederacy.     There  was  no  sign  of  exultation 


<63o) 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  631 

no  elation  of  spirit,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a   look  of  unutterable 
weariness,    as    if    his    spirit,    energy    and    animating    force    were 

wholly  exhausted 

Later  in  the  afternoon  I  saw  President  Lincoln  riding  through 
the  streets,  taking  a  hasty  glance  at  the  scene  of  desolation  and  woe. 
There  was  no  smile  upon  his  face.  Paler  than  ever  his  counte- 
nance, deeper  than  ever  before  the  lines  upon  his  forehead.  The 
driver  turned  his  horses  towards  the  landing.  The  visit  to  the 
Capital  of  the  Confederacy  was  ended. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Charles  Carleton  Coffin.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice, 
page  183. 

" The  End  Has  Almost  Come! " 

The  next  time  x  met  Mr.  Lincoln  was  early  on  the  morning  of 
April  7,  1865,  in  the  log  cabin  now  standing  in  Fairmount  Park, 
Philadelphia,  and  then  known  as  "Grant's  Headquarters  at  City 
Point. "  I  was  in  search  of  a  pass  to  get  through  the  lines  to  the 
army,  to  see  my  brother,  and,  as  I  hoped,  to  witness  the  last  fight 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  As  I  entered  the  room,  a  voice  from 
behind  the  open  door  called  my  name,  and  as  I  turned,  Mr.  Lincoln 
rose  from  a  desk  and  pleasantly  made  a  few  inquiries  about  myself. 
He  then  said,  "  Oh!  let  me  give  you  the  latest  news,  "  and  picking 
up  a  paper  which  lay  on  his  table,  he  read  to  me  Sheridan's  telegram 
to  General  Grant,  repeated  word  for  word  by  the  latter  to  the 
President,  in  which  the  capture  of  seven  thousand  men  and  five 
generals,  including  Ewell  and  Custis  Lee,  was  reported.  This  was 
the  famous  dispatch  in  which  Sheridan  said  that  if  the  thing  was 
pushed,  he  thought  Lee  would  surrender,  to  which  Lincoln,  in  his 
characteristic  style,  laconically  replied,  "Let  the  thing  be 
pushed." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was,  of  course,  intensely  delighted  with  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  hemming  in  Lee's  army,  and, 
rubbing  his  hands  together  in  satisfaction,  he  remarked  with  a 
smile  upon  his  dear  face  such  as  I  had  never  before  seen, 
"The  end  has  almost  come!" 

Personal  Notes  and  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  H.  S.  Huidekoper,  page  19. 

Returning  from  City  Point 

Evening  came  on  quickly.     FJassing  before  Mount  Vernon,  I 
remember  saying  to  him:  "Mount  Vernon   and    Springfield,   the 


632  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LIXCOLX 


memories  of  Washington  and  your  own,  those  of  the  Revolutionary 
and  Civil  Wars ;  these  are  the  spots  and  names  America  shall  one 
day  equally  honor. "  This  remark  appeared  to  call  him  to  himself. 
"  Springfield ! "  answered  he.  "  How  happy,  four  years  hence,  will  I 
be  to  return  there  in  peace  and  tranquillity ! " 

Arrived  at  the  Potomac  wharf,  our  party  was  forced  to  disperse. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Senator  Sumner  and  myself  drove  home  in 
the  same  carriage.  We  were  nearing  Washington  when  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  who  had  hitherto  remained  silently  looking  at  the  town 
a  short  distance  off,  said  to  me: 

"That  city  is  filled  with  our  enemies. " 

On  hearing  this  the  President  raised  his  arm  and  somewhat 
impatiently  retorted,  "Enemies!     We  must  never  speak  of  that." 

This  was  on  the  evening  of  April  9th. 

Personal  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  The  Marquis  de  Chambrun.    Scribner's  Magazine,  Vol.  XIII, 
January,  1893,  page  34. 

How  Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet  Received  the  News  of  Lee's  Surrender 

On  the  day  the  news  of  General  Lee's  surrender  at  Appomattox 
Court-House  was  received,  so  an  intimate  friend  of  President  Lincoln 
relates,  the  Cabinet  meeting  was  held  an  hour  earlier  than  usual. 
Neither  the  President  nor  any  member  of  the  Cabinet  was  able, 
for  a  time,  to  give  utterance  to  his  feelings. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  they  all  dropped  on  their 
knees  and  offered,  in  silence  and  in  tears,  their  humble  and  heart- 
felt acknowledgments  to  the  Almighty  for  the  triumph  He  had 
granted  to  the  national  cause. 

"  Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure,  page  419. 

"The  President's  Life-Preserver" 

Mr.  Lincoln's  laugh  stood  by  itself.  The  neigh  of  a  wild  horse 
on  his  native  prairie  is  not  more  undisguised  and  hearty.  A  group 
of  gentlemen,  among  whom  was  his  old  friend  and  associate,  Isaac 
N.  Arnold,  were  one  day  conversing  in  the  passage  near  his  office, 
while  awaiting  admission.  A  congressional  delegation  had  pre- 
ceded them  and  presently  an  unmistakable  voice  was  heard 
through  the  partition,  in  a  burst  of  mirth.  Mr.  Arnold  remarked, 
as  the  sound  died  away : 

"  That  laugh  has  been  the  President's  life-preserver!" 

Six  M'^ths  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  150. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  •  633 


Behind  the  Scenes  at  a  White  House  Serenade 

The  same  care  which  Lincoln  bestowed  on  his  messages  and 
letters  was  given  to  his  speeches,  though  it  is  not  likely  that  any  one 
of  these  was  elaborated  as  much  as  the  Gettysburg  Address.  He 
was  afraid,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  being  betrayed  into  using  undignified 
expressions  when  called  out  without  due  preparation.  Once,  being 
notified  that  he  was  to  be  serenaded,  just  after  some  notable  military 
or  political  event,  he  asked  me  to  come  to  dinner,  "so  as  to  be  on 
hand  and  see  the  fun  afterwards, "  as  he  said. 

He  excused  himself  as  soon  as  we  had  dined,  and,  while  the 
bands  were  playing,  the  crowds  cheering  and  the  rockets  burst- 
ing outside  the  house,  he  made  his  re-appearance  in  the  parlor, 
with  a  roll  of  manuscript  in  his  hand.  Perhaps  noticing  a  look  of 
surprise  on  my  face,  he  said,  "  I  know  what  you  are  thinking  about. 
You  think  it  mighty  queer  that  an  old  stump-speaker  like  myself 
should  not  be  able  to  address  a  crowd  like  this  outside  without  a 
written  speech.  But  you  must  remember  I  am,  in  a  certain  sense, 
talking  to  the  country,  and  I  have  to  be  mighty  careful.  Now, 
the  last  time  I  made  an  off-hand  speech,  in  answer  to  a  serenade,  I 
used  the  phrase,  as  applied  to  the  Rebels,  'turned  tail  and  ran.' 
Some  very  nice  Boston  folks,  I  am  grieved  to  hear,  were  very 
much  outraged  by  that  phrase,  which  they  thought  improper.  So 
I  resolved  to  make  no  more  impromptu  speeches  if  I  could  help  it.  " 

Hearing  that  speech  from  the  inside  of  the  White  House  was 
like  seeing  a  play  from  behind  the  scenes.  The  immense  concourse 
in  front  of  the  house  was  illuminated  with  fireworks.  The  air  was 
rent  with  the  noise  of  cheers,  music  and  exploding  rockets  and 
bombs.  Just  as  we  went  upstairs,  an  unusual  yell,  mingled  with 
laughter  and  cheers,  caused  the  President  to  pause  and  ask  what 
that  might  be.  Little  Tad,  then  about  eleven  years  old,  de- 
lirious with  excitement,  had  seized  a  captured  Rebel  flag  which  had 
been  given  him,  and  leaning  as  far  out  of  the  window  as  possible, 
was  waving  it  with  might  and  main,  to  the  wonderment  and  delight 
of  the  crowd  beneath.  At  that  moment  old  Edward,  the  faithful 
doorkeeper,  in  great  consternation,  seized  the  lad  by  the  ampler 
portion  of  his  small  trousers,  and  plucked  him  from  the  window-sill. 
Howling  with  anger,  he  fled  to  his  father,  who  had  scarcely  com- 
posed his  laughing  features  when  he  advanced  to  the  large  open 


634  •  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

window  over  the  main  entrance.  When  Lincoln  began  to  read  his 
speech,  he  held  a  candle  in  his  left  hand  and  the  manuscript  in  the 
right  hand,  but,  speedily  becoming  embarrassed  by  the  difficulty  of 
managing  the  candle  and  the  speech,  he  made  a  comical  motion  with 
his  left  foot  and  elbow,  which  I  construed  to  mean  that  I  should 
hold  the  candle  for  him,  which  I  did.  As  he  read,  he  dropped  the 
slips  of  manuscript  on  the  floor,  and  Tad,  scurrying  about,  gathered 
them  up  as  they  drifted  about,  like  big  butterflies,  from  the  Presi- 
dent's hand.  After  the  speech  was  over,  and  the  crowds  were 
cheering  tremendously,  the  President,  who  continued  to  stand  at 
the  window-sill,  addressing  his  candle-bearer,  said, 

"That  was  a  pretty  fair  speech,  I  think,  but  you  threw  some 
light  on  it. " 

Personal  Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  Noah  Brooks.     Scribner's  Monthly,  Vol.  XV,  February,  1878, 
page  567. 

From  Lincoln's  Last  Speech 

This  carefully  worded,  wise  and  memorable  production  was 
delivered  Tuesday  evening,  April  ii,  1865,  in  response  to  a  serenade 
at  the  White  House: 

"Fellow  Citizens:  We  meet  this  evening  not  in  sorrow,  but 
in  gladness  of  heart.  The  evacuation  of  Petersburg  and  Richmond, 
and  the  surrender  of  the  principal  insurgent  army,  give  hope  of  a 
righteous  and  speedy  peace  whose  joyous  expression  cannot  be 
restrained.  In  the  midst  of  this,  however,  He  from  whom  all  bless- 
ings flow^  must  not  be  forgotten.  A  call  for  a  national  thanksgiving 
is  being  prepared  and  will  be  duly  promulgated.  Nor  must  those 
whose  harder  part  gives  us  the  cause  of  rejoicing  be  overlooked. 
Their  honors  must  not  be  parceled  out  with  the  others.  I  myself 
was  near  the  front,  and  had  the  high  pleasure  of  transmitting  much 
of  the  good  news  to  3^ou;  but  no  part  of  the  honor,  for  plan  or 
execution,  is  mine.  To  General  Grant,  his  skilful  officers  and  brave 
men,  all  belongs.  The  gallant  navy  stood  ready,  but  was  not  in 
reach  to  take  active  part. 

"By  these  recent  successes,  the  re-inauguration  of  national 
authority,  reconstniction,  which  has  had  a  large  share  of  thought 
from  the  first,  is  pressed  much  more  closely  upon  our  attention.  It 
is  fraught  with  great  difficulty.  Unlike  the  case  of  a  war  between 
independent  nations,  there  is  no  authorized  organ  for  us  to  treat 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  63  s 

with.  No  man  has  authority  to  give  up  the  Rebellion  for  any  other 
man.  We  simply  must  begin  with  and  mold  from  disorganized  and 
discordant  elements.  Nor  is  it  a  small  additional  embarrassment 
that  we,  the  loyal  people,  differ  among  ourselves  as  to  the  mode,  the 

manner  and  means  of  reconstruction 

"  In  the  present  situation,  as  the  phrase  goes,  it  may  be  my 
duty  to  make  some  new  announcement  to  the  people  of  the  South. 
I  am  considering,  and  shall  not  fail  to  act,  when  satisfied  that 
action  will  be  proper." 

[During  the  reading  of  this  speech  Tad  had  recovered  from  his 
wrath  over  his  recent  humiliation  and  caught  the  sheets  of  his 
father's  speech  as  Lincoln  let  them  drop,  sometimes  tugging  im- 
patiently at  his  father's  coat-tails,  with,  "  Give  me  another  paper, 
Papa!" 

The  President,  before  retiring  from  before  the  crowd,  called 
on  the  serenading  band  to  play  "  Dixie, "  saying  joyously :  "  We  have 
a  right  to  that  tune  now^  "  When  he  turned  back  into  the  White 
House  Mrs.  Lincoln  called  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  might 
easily  have  been  shot  while  speaking,  and  begged  him  not  to  expose 
himself  so  recklessly  again.  This  was  Tuesday  night,  April  nth. 
— W.  W.] 

Lincoln's  Last  Telegram 

Mr.  Lincoln's  last  telegram  was  one  transmitted  to  Major- 
General  Weitzel,  in  command  at  Richmond,  on  the  12th  of  April, 
in  which  he  ordered  that  "the  gentlemen  who  had  acted  as  the 
Legislature  of  Virginia  in  the  support  of  the  Rebellion  be  not 
allowed  to  assemble  even  in  their  individual  capacity."  The 
following  is  the  dispatch : 

"I  have  just  seen  Judge  Campbell's  letter  to  you  of  the  7th. 
He  assumes,  as  it  appears  to  me,  that  I  have  called  the  insurgent 
Legislature  of  Virginia  together,  as  the  rightful  Legislature  of  the 
State,  to  settle  all  differences  with  the  United  States.  I  have  done 
no  such  thing.  I  spoke  of  them  not  as  a  Legislature  but  as  'the 
gentlemen  who  have  acted  as  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  in  the 
support  of  the  Rebellion.'  I  did  this  on  purpose  to  exclude  the 
assumption  that  I  was  recognizing  them  as  a  rightful  body.  I  dealt 
mth  them  as  men  having  power  de  facto  to  do  a  specific  thing,  to 


636  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

wit:  "to  \Yithdraw  the  Virginia  troops  and  other  support  from 
resistance  to  the  general  Government,"  for  which,  in  the  paper 
handed  to  Judge  Campbell,  I  promised  a  special  equivalent,  to  wit: 
a  remission  to  the  people  of  the  State  except  in  certain  cases,  of  the 
confiscation  of  their  property.  I  meant  this  and  no  more.  Inas- 
much, however,  as  Judge  Campbell  misconstrues  this  and  is  still 
pressing  for  an  armistice,  contrary  to  the  explicit  statement  of  the 
paper  I  gave  him,  and  particularly  as  General  Grant  has  since 
captured  the  Virginia  troops,  so  that  giving  a  consideration  for 
their  withdrawal  is  no  longer  applicable,  let  my  letter  to  you  and 
the  paper  to  Judge  Campbell  both  be  withdrawn  or  countermanded 
and  he  be  notified  of  it.  Do  not  allow  them  to  assemble,  but  if  any 
have  come,  allow  them  safe  return  to  their  homes.  " 

Life  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  George  C.  Gorham,  Vol.  II,  page  242. 

Secretary  Stoddard  Takes  His  Last  Leave  of  President  Lincoln 

"The  President  is  waiting  to  see  you,  sir.  He  is  in  the  room 
beyond  the  library.  I'll  shake  hands  with  you  now,  sir.  I'm  going 
out  and  I'll  not  be  at  the  door.  " 

"All  right,  Edward,  I'll  go  in  and  see  him.  " 

I  shook  hands  with  Old  Edward  and  walked  slowly  on  through 
the  shadowy  hall  to  the  room  where  I  was  to  say  good-bye  to 
Abraham  Lincoln.     It  was  just  the  place  for  a  quiet,  farewell  talk. 

"Yes,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  I  said,  "all  my  arrangements  are  made, 
and  I'm  off  to-night.  " 

"Take  these  things  with  you,  then," — passes,  letters,  orders 
for  transportation  he  put  in  my  hand — "and  now  there's  just  on? 
thing  I  want  to  say.  The  War  is  .  .  over,  .  .  .  Now,  \\-hat 
I  want  you  to  do  is  this:  Do  all  you  can,  in  any  and  everyway  you 
can,  to  get  the  ballot  into  the  hands  of  the  freedmen.  .  .  .  Will  you?" 

He  spoke  of  the  Southern  people  in  the  friendliest  and  most 
hopeful  manner.  They  had  no  better  friend  than  he,  nor  wiser. 
....  The  parting  grasp  of  his  iron  hand  all  but  crushed  mine, 
while  those  deep,  mournful  eyes  beamed  down  upon  me  warmly, 
full  of  good -will. 

"Good-bye;"  the  White  House  days  have  become  as  a  drean? 
of  the  night,  when  it  is  ended — and  I  never  saw  his  face  again. 

Inside  the  White  House  in  War  Times,  William  O.  Stoddard,  page  243. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

Lincoln's  Last  Day 

The  Morning  of  That  Fateful  Day 

"The  War  is  over."  Throughout  the  breadth  of  the  North 
this  was  the  jubilant  cry  with  which  people  greeted  one  another  on 
the  morning  of  April  14,  1865.  For  ten  days  reports  of  victories  had 
been  coming  to  them;  Petersburg  evacuated,  Richmond  fallen, 
Jefferson  Davis  and  his  Cabinet  fled,  Lee  surrendered.  Mobile  cap- 
tured. Nothing  of  the  Confederacy,  in  short,  remained  but  Johns- 
ton's army,  and  it  was  generally  believed  that  its  surrender  to 
Sherman  was  but  a  matter  of  hours.  How  completely  the  conflict 
was  at  an  end,  however,  the  people  of  .the  North  had  not  realized 
until  they  read  in  their  newspapers,  on  that  Good  Friday  morning, 
the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War  suspending  the  draft,  stopping 
the  purchase  of  military  supplies  and  removing  military  restrictions 
from  trade.     The  War  was  over  indeed 

One  man  before  all  others  in  the  nation  felt  and  showed  his 
gladness  that  day — the  President,  Abraham  Lincoln.  .  .  .  There 
was  a  marked  change  in  his  appearance.  All  through  1 863  and  1 864 
his  thin  face  had  day  by  day  grown  more  haggard,  its  lines  had 
deepened,  its  pallor  had  become  a  more  ghastly  gray.  His  eye, 
always  sad  when  he  was  in  thought,  had  a  look  of  unutterable  grief. 
Through  all  these  months  Lincoln  was,  in  fact,  consumed  by  sorrow. 

"  I  think  I  shall  never  be  glad  again,  "  he  said  once  to  a  friend. 
But  as  one  by  one  the  weights  lifted,  a  change  came  over  him;  his 
form  straightened,  his  face  cleared,  the  lines  became  less  accentu- 
ated. 

"  His  whole  appearance,  poise,  and  bearing  had  marvellously 
changed,"  says  the  Hon.  James  Harlan.  "He  was,  in  fact,  trans- 
figured. That  indescribable  sadness  which  had  previously  seemed 
to  be  an  adamantine  element  of  his  very  being,  had  been  suddenly 
changed  for  an  equally  indescribable  expression  of  serene  joy,  as  if 
conscious  that  the  great  purpose  of  his  life  had  been  achieved.  " 

Never  since  he  had  become  convinced  that  the  end  of  the  War 

(637) 


6s^  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

was  near  had  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  to  his  friends  more  glad,  more 
serene,  than  on  the  14th  of  April.  The  morning  was  soft  and  sunny 
in  Washington,  and  as  the  spring  was  early  in  1865,  the  Judas  trees 
and  the  dogwood  were  blossoming  on  the  hillsides,  the  willows  were 
green  along  the  Potomac,  and  in  the  parks  and  gardens  the  lilacs 
bloomed — a  day  of  promise  and  joy  to  which  the  whole  town 
responded.  .  .  .  The  suspension  of  the  draft  and  the  presence  of 
Grant  in  town — come  this  time  not  to  plan  new  campaigns,  but  to 
talk  of  peace  and  reconstruction — seemed  to  furnish  special  reason 
for  celebrating. 

At  the  White  House  the  family  party  which  met  at  breakfast 
was  unusually  happy.  Captain  Robert  Lincoln,  the  President's 
oldest  son,  then  an  aide-de-camp  on  Grant's  staff,  had  arrived  that 
morning,  and  the  closing  scenes  of  Grant's  campaign  were  dis- 
cussed with  the  deepest  interest  by  father  and  son 

Later  in  the  morning  the  Cabinet  met,  Friday  being  its  regular 
day.  General  Grant  was  invited  to  remain  to  its  session.  There 
was  the  greatest  interest  at  the  moment  in  General  Sherman's  move- 
ments, and  Grant  was  plied  with  questions  by  the  Cabinet.  The 
President  was  least  anxious  of  all.  The  news  would  soon  come,  he 
said,  and  it  would  be  favorable.  He  had  no  doubt  of  this,  for  the 
night  before  he  had  had  a  dream  which  had  preceded  nearly  every 
important  event  of  the  war. 

"He  said  it  was  in  my  Department,  it  related  to  the  water," 
Secretary  Welles  afterward  wrote:  "that  he  seemed  to  be  in  a 
singular  and  indescribable  vessel,  but  always  the  same,  and  that  he 
was  moving  with  great  rapidity  toward  a  dark  and  indefinite  shore ; 
that  he  had  had  this  singular  dream  preceding  the  firing  on  Sumter, 
the  battles  of  Bull  Run,  Antietam,  Gettysburg,  Stone  River,  Vicks- 
burg,  Wilmington,  etc.  .  .  .  Victory  did  not  always  follow  his 
dream,  but  the  event  and  results  were  important.  He  had  no  doubt 
that  a  battle  had  taken  place,  or  was  about  being  fought,  'and 
Johnston  will  be  beaten,  for  I  had  this  strange  dream  again  last 
night.  It  must  relate  to  Sherman;  my  thoughts  are  in  that 
direction,  and  /  know  of  no  other  very  important  event  which  is  likely 
just  now  to  occur.'  " 

The  greater  part  of  the  meeting  was  taken  up  with  a  discussion 
of  the  policy  of  reconstruction.    .    .    .   The  President  warned  them 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  639 

emphatically,  Mr.  Welles  says,  that  he  did  not  sympathize  with  and 
would  not  participate  in  any  feelings  of  hate  and  vindictiveness. 

"He  hoped  there  would  be  no  persecution,  no  bloody  work, 
after  the  War  was  over.  None  need  expect  he  would  take  any  part 
in  hanging  or  killing  these  men,  even  the  worst  of  them.  Frighten 
them  out  of  the  country,  let  down  the  bars,  scare  them  off,  said  he, 
throwing  up  his  hands  as  if  scaring  sheep.  Enough  lives  have  been 
sacrificed.  We  must  extinguish  our  resentment  if  we  expect 
harmony  and  union.  There  was  too  much  desire  on  the  part  of  our 
very  good  friends  to  be  masters,  to  interfere  with  and  dictate  to 
those  vStates,  to  treat  the  people  not  as  fellow-citizens ;  there  was  too 
little  respect  for  their  rights.  He  didn't  sympathize  in  these 
feelings. " 

The  impression  he  made  on  all  the  Cabinet  that  day  was 
expressed  twenty-four  hours  later  by  Secretary  Stanton : 

"  He  was  more  cheerful  and  happy  than  I  had  ever  seen  him, 
rejoiced  at  the  near  prospect  of  a  firm  and  durable  peace  at  home 
and  abroad,  manifested  in  marked  degree  the  kindness  and  hu- 
manity of  his  disposition,  and  the  tender  and  forgiving  spirit  that 
so  eminently  distinguished  him.  " 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  pages  230  to  23s. 

"What  a  Pity  We  Have  to  Fight  Such  a  Gallant  Fellow!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  generous  by  nature,  and  though  his  whole 
heart  was  in  the  War,  he  could  not  but  respect  the  valor  of  those 
opposed  to  him.  His  soul  was  too  great  for  narrow,  selfish  views  or 
partisanship.  Brave  by  nature  himself,  he  honored  bravery  in 
others,  even  his  foes.  Time  and  again  I  have  heard  him  speak  in  the 
highest  terms  of  the  soldierly  qualities  of  such  brave  Confederate 
Generals  as  Lee,  "Stonewall"  Jackson  and  Joseph  E.  Johnston. 
Jackson  was  his  ideal  soldier. 

"  He  is  a  brave,  honest,  Presbyterian  soldier,  "  were  the  Presi- 
dent's words.  "What  a  pity  that  we  should  have  to  fight  such  a 
gallant  fellow !  If  we  only  had  such  a  man  to  lead  the  armies  of 
the  North,  the  country  would  not  be  appalled  with  so  many  dis- 
asters. " 

The  very  morning  of  the  day  on  which  he  was  assassinated,  his 
son,  Captain  Robert  Lincoln,  came  into  the  room  with  a  portrait 
of  General  [Robert  E.]  Lee  in  his  hand.     The  President  took  the 


640 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 


picture,  laid  it  on  the  table  before  him,  scanned  the  face  thought- 
fully, and  said : 

"  It  is  a  good  face ; 
it  is  the  face  of  a  noble, 
noble,  brave  man.  I  am 
glad  that  the  War  is  over 
at  last. "  Looking  up  at 
Robert,  he  continued : 

"  Well,  my  son,  you 
have  returned  safely 
from  the  front.  The 
War  is  now  closed,  and 
we  soon  will  live  at 
peace  with  the  brave 
men  that  have  been 
fighting  against  us.  I 
trust  that  the  era  of 
good  feeling  has  re- 
turned with  the  end  of 
the  War,  and  that 
henceforth  we  shall  live 
in  peace.  Now,  listen 
to  me,  Robert:  You 
must  lay  aside  your 
uniform  and  return  to 
college.  I  wish  you  to 
read  law  for  three 
years,  and  at  the  end 
of  that  time  I  hope  we 
shall  be  able  to  tell  whether  you  will  make  a  lawyer  or  not.  " 

His  face  was  more  cheerful  than  I  had  seen  it  for  a  long  while, 
and  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  generous,  forgiving  mood. 

Behind  the  Scenes,  Elizabeth  Keckley,  page  36. 

Dickens's  Story  of  Lincoln's  Last  Cabinet  Meeting 

Charles  Dickens,  writing  from  Washington  to  John  Foster,  in 
1868,  mentioned  having  dined  with  Senator  Sumner,  the  only  other 
guest  being  Secretary  Stanton,  from  whom  he  had  this  "  curious 
little  story"  about  the  last  Cabinet  meeting  of  President  Lincoln: 


■STONEWALL"  JACKSON,   CONFEDERATE  GENERAL 
"  A  brave,  honest,  Presbyterian  soldier." 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  641 

"Mr.  Stanton,  on  leaving  the  council  with  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral, said  to  him: 

"  '  That  is  the  rnost  satisfactory  Cabinet  meeting  I  have  attended 
for  many  a  long  day.  What  an  extraordinary  change  in  Mr. 
Lincoln!' 

' '  The  Attorney-General  replied : 

"  'We  all  saw  it  before  you  came  in.  While  we  were  waiting 
for  you  he  sat  with  his  chin  down  on  his  breast : ' 

"'Gentlemen,  something  very  extraordinary  is  going  to  hap- 
pen, and  that  very  soon.' 

"To  which  the  Attorney-General  had  observed: 

"  'Something  very  good,  sir,  I  hope?'  when  the  President 
answered  very  gravely : 

"  'I  don't  know — I  don't  know.  But 
it  will  happen,  and  shortly  too. ' 

"As  they  were  all  impressed  by  his 
manner,  the  Attorney-General  took  him  up 
again. 

' '  '  Have  you  received  any  information, 
sir,  not  yet  disclosed  to  us  ? ' 

"  'No,'  answered  the  President,  'but 
I  have  had  a  dream.  And  I  have  had 
the  same  dream  three  times:  once  the 
night  preceding  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 

once  on  the  night  preceding  such  another'  (naming  a  battle  also 
not  favorable  to  the  North) . 

"  His  chin  sank  on  his  breast  again,  and  he  sat  reflecting. 

"  'Might  one  ask  the  nature  of  this  dream,  sir?'  said  the  Attor- 
ney-General. 

"  'Well,*  replied  the  President,  without  lifting  his  head  or 
changing  his  attitude,  '  I  am  on  a  great,  broad,  rolling  river — and 
I  am  in  a  boat — and  I  drift — and  I  drift— but  this  is  not  business, ' 
suddenly  raising  his  voice  and  looking  around  the  table  as  Mr, 
Stanton  entered : 

"  'Let  us  proceed  to  business,  gentlemen.' 

"Mr.  Stanton  and  the  Attorney-General  said,  as  they  walked 
on  together,  it  would  be  curious  to  notice  whether  anything  ensued 
on  this,  and  they  agreed  to  notice." 

4X 


642  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Of  those  who  met  at  this  council,  one  of  the  latest  survivors 
v/as  the  Hon,  James  Speed,  of  Louisville,  then  Attorney -General. 
His  attention  having  been  called  to  this  account  from  Dickens,  its 
verity  was  confirmed  in  a  letter    ...    in  which  Mr.  Speed  said : 

"I  cannot  attempt  to  give  in  better  words  than  Mr.  Dickens  an 
account  of  that  Cabinet  meeting,  although  it  made  an  indelible 
impression  upon  my  memory.  Even  after  the  lapse  of  so  many 
years  the  picture  can  be  recalled  to  my  mind's  eye  as  clearly  as 
though  the  circumstances  occurred  but  yesterday;  and  I  fondly 
cling  to  the  memory  of  Mr,  Lincoln's  personal  appearance  as  I  saw 
him  that  day,  with  cleanly  shaved  face,  well  brushed  clothing,  and 
neatly  combed  hair  and  whiskers.  In  fact,  the  contrast  was  so 
great  as  to  cause  each  member  of 'the  Cabinet  to  remark  it.  I  well 
remember  that  Mr.  Stanton  said  to  me  as  we  went  down  the  stairs 
together, 

"  Didn't  our  chief  look  grand  to-day?" 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol.  II,  page  355. 

"Well  Done,  Good  and  Faithful  Servants !" 

In  April,  1865, 1  was  sent  with  the  Government  excursion  from 
Washington  to  Charleston  to  take  part  in  the  ceremony  of  raising 
over  Fort  Sumter  the  flag  that  had  been  lowered  there  in  April, 
1 86 1.  When  I  reported  to  Stanton  upon  my  return,  he  gave  me  a 
detailed  account  of  the  awful  tragedy  which  had  been  enacted  in 
the  national  Capital  during  our  absence.  He  said  that  he  had  never 
felt  so  sensible  of  his  deep  affection  for  Lincoln  as  he  did  during  their 
final  interview.  At  last  they  could  see  the  end  of  bloody  fratricidal 
war.  Peace  was  dawning  upon  their  beloved  country.  '  Well  done, 
good  and  faithful  servants!"  was  upon  the  lips  of  the  nation.  As 
they  exchanged  congratulations,  Lincoln,  from  his  greater  height, 
dropped  his  long  arm  upon  Stanton's  shoulders,  and  a  hearty  em- 
brace terminated  their  rejoicings  oyer  the  close  of  the  mighty 
struggle.     Stanton  went  home  happy. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  B.  Fry.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page  403. 

The  Afternoon  Drive  with  Mrs.  Lincoln 

After  the  Cabinet  meeting  he  went  to  drive  with  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
expressing  a  wish  that  no  one  should  accompany  them,  and  evi- 
dently desiring  to  converse  alone  w4th  her. 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  645 

"  Mary,  "  said  he,  "  we  have  had  a  hard  time  of  it  since  we  came 
to  Washington,  but  the  War  is  over,  and  with  God's  blessing  we  may- 
hope  for  four  years  of  peace  and  happiness,  and  then  we  will  go  back 
to  Illinois  and  pass  the  rest  of  our  lives  in  quiet.  " 

He  spoke  of  his  old  Springfield  home,  and  recollections  of  his 
early  days,  his  little  brown  cottage,  the  law  office,  the  court-room, 
the  green  bag  for  his  briefs  and  law  papers,  his  adventures  when 
riding  on  the  circuit,  came  thronging  back  to  him.  The  tension 
under  which  he  had  so  long  been  kept  was  removed  and  he  was  like 
a  boy  out  of  school. 

"We  have  laid  by,"  said  he  to  his  wife,  "some  money,  and 
during  this  term  we  will  try  and  save  up  more,  but  shall  not  have 
enough  to  support  us.  We  will  go  back  to  Illinois,  and  I  will  open 
a  law-office  at  Springfield  or  Chicago,  and  practise  law,  and  at  least 
do  enough  to  help  give  us  a  livelihood.  " 

Such  were  the  dreams,  the  day-dreams  of  Lincoln,  the  last  day 
of  his  life.  In  imagination  he  was  again  in  his  prairie  home, 
among  his  law-books,  and  in  the  courts  with  his  old  friends. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  page  429. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  noticed  that  the  President,  during  their  afternoon 
drive  .  .  .  was  in  unusually  good  spirits,  and  remarked  to  him 
that  he  was  in  a  like  mood  just  before  the  fatal  illness  of  their  son 
Willie.  But  no  kindly  premonition  warned  her  of  the  particular 
danger  to  be  avoided .  ...  In  the  joyous  excitement  of  the  time 
even  the  devotee  seemed  to  forget  the  wonted  associations  of  Good 
Friday. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D.,  Vol,  II,  page  357. 

Lincoln's  Last  Official  Acts  of  Mercy 

During  the  afternoon  the  President  signed  a  pardon  for  a 
soldier  sentenced  to  be  shot  for  desertion,  remarking  as  he  did  so: 

"  Well,  I  think  the  boy  can  do  us  more  good  above  ground  than 
under  ground. " 

He  also  approved  an  application  for  the  discharge,  on  taking 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  of  a  Rebel  prisoner,  on  whose  petition  he 
wrote : 

''Let  it  he  done.'" 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  218. 


644  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"It's  Best  to  Let  Him  Run" 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  14th  of  April — it  was  Good  Friday — I 
got  a  telegram  from  the  Provost  Marshal  in  Portland,  Me.,  saying: 
"I  have  positive  information  that  Jacob  Thompson  will  pass 
through  Portland  to-night,  in  order  to  take  a  steamer  for  England. 
What  are  your  orders?" 

Jacob  Thompson,  of  Mississippi,  had  been  Secretary  of  the 
Interior  in  President  Buchanan's  administration.  He  was  a  con- 
spicuous secessionist,  and  for  some  time  had  been  employed  in 
Canada  as  a  semi -diplomatic  agent  of  the  Confederate  Government, 
He  had  been  organizing  all  sorts  of  trouble  and  getting  up  raids,  of 
which  the  notorious  attack  on  St.  Albans,  Vt.,  was  a  specimen. 
I  took  the  telegram  and  went  down  and  read  it  to  Mr.  Stanton. 
His  order  was  prompt:  "Arrest  him!"  But  as  I  was  going  out  of 
the  door  he  called  to  me  and  said:  "No,  wait;  better  go  over  and 
see  the  President. " 

At  the  White  House  all  the  work  of  the  day  was  over,  and  I 
went  into  the  President's  business  room  without  meeting  any  one. 
Opening  the  door,  there  seemed  to  be  no  one  there,  but,  as  I  was 
turning  to  go  out,  Mr.  Lincoln  called  to  me  from  a  little  side  room, 
where  he  was  washing  his  hands: 

"Hallo,  Dana!"  said  he.     "What  is  it?     What's  up?" 

Then  I  read  him  the  telegram  from  Portland. 

"What  does  Stanton  say?"  he  asked. 

"He  says  arrest  him,  but  that  I  should  refer  the  question  to 
you." 

"Well,"  said  the  President  slowly,  wiping  his  hands,  "no,  I 
rather  think  not.  When  you've  got  an  elephant  by  the  hind  leg, 
and  he's  trying  to  run  away,  it's  best  to  let  him  run.  " 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  Charles  A.  Dana,  page  273. 

Lincoln  Goes  to  the  Theater  in  Order  Not  to  Disappoint  People 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  he  returned  from  his  drive, 
and  as  he  left  the  carriage  he  saw  going  across  the  lawn  toward  the 
Treasury  a  group  of  friends,  among  them  Richard  Oglesby,  then 
Governor  of  Illinois. 

"  Come  back,  boys,  come  back, "  he  shouted. 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY 


<54S 


-./■^ 


The  party  turned,  joined  the  President  on  the  portico,  and 
went  up  to  his  office  with  him. 

"How  long  we  remained  there  I  do  not  remember,"  says 
Governor  Oglesby.  " Lincoln  got  to  reading  some  humorous  book; 
I  think  it  was  by  'John  Phoenix.'  They  kept  sending  for  him  to 
come' to  dinner.  He  promised  each  time  to  go,  but  would  continue 
reading  the  book.  Finally  he  got  a  sort  of  peremptory  order  that 
he  must  come  to  dinner  at  once.  It  was  explained  to  me  by  the 
old  man  at  the  door  that  they  were  going  to 
•have  dinner  and  then  go  to  the  theater. " 

A  theater  party  had  been  made  up  by 
Mrs.  Lincoln  for  that  evening^ — General  and 
Mrs.  Grant  being  her  guests — to  see  Laura 
Keene,  at  Ford's  Theater,  in  "  Our  American 
Cousin.  "  Miss  Keene  was  ending  her  season 
in  Washington  that  night  with  a  benefit. 
The  box  had  been  ordered  in  the  morning, 
and  unusual  preparations  had  been  made  to 
receive  the  Presidential  party.  The  parti- 
tion between  the  two  upper  proscenium  boxes 
at  the  left  of  the  stage  had  been  removed, 
comfortable  upholstered  chairs  had  been  put 
in,  and  the  front  of  the  box  had  been  draped 

with  flags.  The  manager,  of  course,  took  care  to  announce  in 
the  afternoon  papers  that  the  "President  and  his  lady,"  and 
the  "Hero  of  Appomattox"  would  attend  Miss  Keene's  benefit 
that  evening. 

By  eight  o'clock  the  house  was  filled  w^ith  the  half-idle,  half- 
curious  crowd  of  a  holiday  night.  Many  had  come  simply  to  see 
General  Grant,  whose  face  was  then  unfamiliar  in  Washington. 
Others,  strolling  down  the  street,  had  dropped  in  because  they 
had  nothing  better  to  do.  "  The  play  began  promptly,  the  house 
following  its  nonsensical  fun  with  friendly  eyes  and  generous 
applause,  one  eye  on  the  President's  box. 

The  Presidential  party  was  late.  Indeed  it  had  not  left  the 
house  until  after  eight  o'clock,  and  then  it  was  made  up  differently 
from  what  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  expected,  for  in  the  afternoon  she  had 
received  word  that  General  and  Mrs.  Grant  had  decided  to  go  north 
that  night.     It  was  suggested  then  that  the  party  be  given  up,  but 


FORD'S  THEATER 


646  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 

the  fear  that  the  pubHc  would  be  disappointed  decided  the  President 
to  keep  the  engagement.  Two  young  friends,  the  daughter  of 
Senator  Ira  Harris  and  his  stepson,  Major  H.  R.  Rathbone,  had 
been  invited  to  take  the  place  of  General  and  Mrs.  Grant. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  235. 

Lincoln's  Last  Story  and  His  Last  Writing 

The  last  story  told  by  Mr,  Lincoln  was  drawn  out  by  a  circum- 
stance which  occurred  just  before  the  interview  with  Messrs.  Colfax 
and  Ashmun.  .  .  ,  Marshal  Lamon  of  Washington  had  called 
upon  him  with  an  application  for  the  pardon  of  a  soldier.  After  a 
brief  hearing  the  President  took  the  application,  and  when  about  to 
write  his  name  upon  the  back  of  it,  he  looked  up  and  said: 

"  Lamon,  have  you  ever  heard  how  the  Patagonians  eat  oysters? 
They  open  them  and  throw  the  shells  out  of  the  window  until  the 
pile  gets  higher  than  the  house,  and  then  they  move,  "  adding: 

""I  feel  to-day  like  commencing  a  new  pile  of  pardons,  and  I 
may  as  well  begin  it  just  here." 

At  the  subsequent  interview  with  Messrs.  Colfax  and  Ashmun, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  high  spirits.  The  uneasiness  felt  by  his  friends 
during  his  visit  to  Richmond  was  dwelt  upon,  when  he  sportively 
replied  that  he  supposed  he  should  have  been  uneasy  also,  had  any 
other  man  been  President  and  gone  there ;  but  as  it  was,  he  felt  no 
apprehension  of  danger  whatever.  " 

Turning  to  vSpeaker  Colfax,  he  said : 

"  Sumner  has  the  gavel  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  which  he 
got  at  Richmond,  and  intended  to  give  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  but 
I  insisted  he  must  give  it  to  you,  and  you  tell  him  from  me  to  hand 
it  over. " 

Mr.  Ashmun,  who  was  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Chicago  Con- 
vention in  1 860,  alluded  to  the  gavel  used  on  that  occasion,  saying 
he  had  preserved  it  as  a  valuable  memento.  Mr.  Ashmun  then 
referred  to  a  matter  of  business  connected  with  a  cotton  claim 
preferred  by  a  client  of  his,  and  said  that  he  desired  to  have  a  com- 
mission appointed  to  examine  and  decide  upon  the  merits  of  the 
case. 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied  with  considerable  warmth  of  manner, 

**  I  have  done  with  commissions.     I  believe  they  are  con- 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  647 

trivances  to  cheat  the  Government  out  of  every  pound  of  cotton 
they  can  lay  their  hands  on. " 

Mr.  Ashmun's  face  flushed,  and  he  replied  that  he  hoped  the 
President  meant  no  personal  imputation.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  that  he 
had  wounded  his  friend,  and  he  instantly  replied : 

"  You  did  not  understand  me,  Ashmun.  I  did  not  mean  what 
you  inferred.  I  take  it  all  back.  ...  I  apologize  to  you,  Ash- 
mun. " 

He  then  engaged  to  see  Mr.  Ashmun  early  the  next  morning, 
and  taking  a  card,  he  wrote: 

These  were  his  last  written  words.  Turning  to  Mr.  Colfax 
he  said : 

"You  will  accompany  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  me  to  the  theater,  I 
hope?" 

Mr.  Colfax  pleaded  other  engagements, — expecting  to  start  on 
his  Pacific  trip  the  next  morning.  The  party  passed  out  on  the 
portico  together,  the  President  saying  at  the  very  last : 

"Colfax,  don't  forget  to  tell  the  people  of  the  mining  regions 
what  I  told  you  this  morning  about  the  development  when  peace 
comes;"  then  shaking  hands  with  both  gentlemen,  he  followed  Mrs. 
Lincoln  into  the  carriage,  leaning  forward,  at  the  last  moment,  to 
say  as  they  were  driven  off : 

"  I  will  telegraph  you,  Colfax,  at  San  Francisco. " 

Si^  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  384< 


/ItJW^,^ 


648 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN- 


The  Tragedy  Described  by  an  Eye-Witness 

About  the  middle  of  the  first  act  the  President  and  party 
arrived,  and  were  received  with  loud  and  hearty  applause.  The 
band  played  "Hail  to  the  Chief!"  which  stopped  the  performance 

for  a  few  minutes  while  they  w^ere 
proceeding  to  their  seats.  On  reach- 
ing the  box  the  President  took  a 
large  arm-chair  in  front  and  to  the 
left  as  they  entered;  Mrs.  Lincoln 
took  a  chair  in  front  to  the  right, 
and  Miss  Harris  one  near  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln, but  not  quite  as  far  forward. 
Major  Rathbone  was  seated  farther 
back  than  the  ladies,  on  an  old- 
fashioned  sofa  that  ran  along  the 
wall  on  the  extreme  right. 

About  the  middle  of  the  third  act 
a  shot  was  heard,  and  immediately 
thereupon  rang  out  John  Wilkes 
Booth's  cry,  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!" 
— not  after  he  reached  the  stage,  as 
has  been  stated  in  some  accounts; 
neither  did  he  jump  from  the  box 
full  height,  with  arms  outspread  and 
upstretched,  as  we  often  see  him  in 
illustrations.  On  the  contrary,  he 
placed  both  hands  upon  the  rail  of  the  box  and  swung  himself  over 
in  that  manner,  thereby  lessening  the  fall  by  the  distance  of  his 
own  height.  One  of  his  spurs  caught  in  the  American  colors 
with  which  the  box  was  draped,  and  he  probably  landed  his  whole 
weight  on  one  foot.  On  striking  the  stage  he  pitched  forward 
on  all  fours,  and  I  then  saw  the  blade  of  a  long  stiletto  or  dagger 
glisten  in  the  footlights,  as  his  hand  lay  on  the  floor.  He  quickly 
rose  to  his  feet  and  took  one  or  two  uncertain  steps,  then,  ttirning 
his  face  to  the  audience,  made  a  grand  flourish  with  the  dagger,  and 
was  off  the  stage  in  a  flash. 

Next  came  the  piercing  and  horrifying  shriek  of  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
and  then  arose  a  fearful  commotion.     Directly  efforts  were  made 


Arrangement  of  the  double  box 
where  Lincoln  was  shot. 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  649 

by  some  parties  to  get  into  the  box  from  the  outside,  but  the  door 
was  barred  from  the  inside.  I  next  noticed  a  mihtary  officer 
standing  on  the  shoulders  of  another  man  and  endeavoring  to  cHmb 
up  to  the  box  from  the  stage. 

Meantime  the  President  had  remained  sitting  in  his  chair  with 
his  head  bent  forward,  but  I  distinctly  saw  him  rise  once  to  his  feet 
and  in  a  dazed  sort  of  way  attempt  to  take  a  step  or  two.  He  was 
not  upright,  but  half  erect.  Just  then  Major  Rathbone  came  to  his 
assistance,  and,  supported  by  the  latter,  he  sank  back  into  the  chair. 
About  this  time  I  noticed  Miss  Laura  Keene,  who  had  reached  the 
box  from  the  private  way  back  of  the  stage,  and  who  was  said  to 
have  brought  a  glass  of  water  which  might  refresh  the  President. 
The  bar  against  the  door  having  been  removed,  from  the  inside, 
several  people  went  into  the  box  from  the  dress  circle,  and  little 
more  could  be  distinguished  thereafter. 

Strangely  enough,  an  assassination  plot  seemed  to  have  been 
understood  at  once,  for  word  was  passed  around  that  the  place 
would  be  blown  up.  There  was  a  general  rush  to  vacate  the  theater, 
and  from  our  position  we  were  necessarily  about  the  last  ones  that 
could  possibly  leave  the  place.  On  nearing  the  door-way  we  saw 
men  approaching  from  the  passage-way  back  of  the  box  with  the 
form  of  the  President,  carried  on  an  improvised  stretcher — as  it 
now  seems  to  me  a  window  shutter  or  something  of  that  nature — 
and  we  stopped  to  let  them  pass.  They  were  hastening  from  the 
building  as  well  as  they  could,  and  the  President's  head  was  thrown 
back  and  hanging  somewhat  down.  He  was  quite  unconscious, 
seemed  perfectly  limp,  and  was  bleeding  slightly  from  the  wound 
in  his  head.  Just  as  they  passed  by  I  glanced  on  the  floor,  and, 
seeing  a  crimson  blotch  on  a  piece  of  paper,  I  picked  it  up.  That 
the  marks  thereon  are  the  life-blood  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  as 
certain  as  that  he  was  shot  on  the  date  and  in  the  place  mentioned. 

As  the  place  remained  brilliantly  lighted  and  there  seemed  to 
be  no  immediate  danger,  we  went  back  to  the  President's  box,  where 
almost  the  first  thing  that  attracted  the  notice  of  my  companion 
and  myself  was  the  pistol  which  Booth  had  used,  lying  on  the  floor 
only  about  three  or  four  feet  back  of  the  chair  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
sat.  I  recall  the  weapon  as  a  single-barreled  percussion -cap 
affair,    of   the    Derringer   type,  shorter  and  more   compact   than 


6so 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


the    dueling    pistols    so    much 


FORD'S  THEATRE 

,-£V«Nii iri«*«i. "taut    »8C 


•  vt.*  ■■«■•»  a»  •«**•  • 


•ntS 


IVidBT  Eyantng.  April  14th,  1865 

laSTnicht 


Mtj«iL*      !■■■    »**ff~» 

I  COXDTi 


clJ.'^ 


iimLiSlKftTCA,N-  --??, 


in  favor   among  gentlemen  of  the 
old  school  in  those  days. 

As  we  started  to  leave  the 
theater  we  met,  at  the  head  of 
the  stairway,  a  policeman,  who 
inquired  if  we  were  present  at  the 
time  of  the  shooting,  etc.,  and 
said  we  had  better  give  our  names 
and  addresses,  as  it  might  be 
necessary  to  call  us  as  witnesses. 
I  drew  the  pistol  out  of  my  pocket 
and  gave  it  to  the  policeman  to 
take  charge  of  against  the  chance 
of  its  being  called  for  as  evi- 
dence.   .    .    . 

Within    an    hour's     time    a 
continuous   line    of    pickets  from 
one    fortification  to  another  was 
thrown  around  Washington,  or  at 
least  such  was  stated  to  have  been 
the  case.     Orders  were  issued  for- 
bidding any  one  to  leave  the  city, 
and  all  precautions  possible  were 
taken    to    prevent     escape;    but 
Wilkes  Booth  had  within  a  half 
hour's  time    crossed  the  eastern 
branch  of  the  Potomac,  dashed  on 
past   the    military    asylum,    and 
thence   into    Maryland.      At    the 
bridge  the  sentry  demanded  the 
password,  but  Booth  replied  with 
a  plausible  explanation  and  im- 
mediately gave  spurs  to  his  horse. 
He    had    ridden    this    horse   re- 
peatedly   over   the   same  ground 
during   several   preceding  weeks, 
as    a    sort    of    rehearsal   of   his 
flight. 

A  New  Story  of  the  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  W.  H.  Taylor.     Leslie's  Weekly^  Vol.  CVI,  March  2i, 
igoS,  page  302, 


y^HBC»T»»1»0«A«D.— ^-IrtH  L4QM  IWHS 
We'J'"T**-'*"  •*■"••■—  -4  ■— Jito  DM« 


:  r;  ~  , 


PATR10TJ(i-'SONC'AND  CHORUS 

"BONOB^O  O^B  SOLSIEBS." 


;■■   BENZnTDf Mi*  JENNIE  GOljBLiT^. "?- 


ADAfis  ^ 


■».     V- 


\ 


Leslie's   Weekly,  March  26,  1908. 

LINCOLN'S   PLAY-BILL 

"That  the  marks  thereon   are  the  life-blood 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  certain." 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  651 


How  the  Awful  Crime  Was  Committed 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  second  act  that  (John  Wilkes)  Booth 
and  his  two  fellow-conspirators  appeared  at  the  door.  Booth  said, 
"  I  think  he  will  come  down  now, "  and  they  aligned  themselves  to 
await  his  coming.  Their  communications  with  each  other  w^ere  in 
whispered  tones.  Finding  that  the  President  would  remain  until 
the  close  of  the  play,  they  then  began  to  prepare  to  assassinate  him 
in  the  theater.  The  neatly  dressed  man  called  the  time  three  times 
in  succession  at  short  intervals,  each  time  a  little  louder  than  before. 
Booth  now  entered  the  saloon,  took  a  drink  of  whiskey,  and  then 
went  at  once  into  the  theater.  He  passed  quickly  along  next  to  the 
wall  behind  the  chairs,  and  having  reached  a  point  near  the  door 
that  led  to  the  passage  behind  the  box,  he  stopped,  took  a  small 
pack  of  visiting  cards  from  his  pocket,  selected  one  and  replaced  the 
others ;  stood  a  second  with  it  in  his  hand,  and  then  showed  it  to 
the  President's  messenger,  who  was  sitting  just  below  him,  and, 
then,  without  waiting,  passed  through  the  door  from  the  lobby  into 
the  passage,  closing  and  barring  it  after  him.  Taking  a  hasty,  but 
careful,  look  through  the  hole  which  he  had  had  made  in  the  door  for 
the  purpose  of  assuring  himself  of  the  President's  position,  cocking 
his  pistol  and  with  his  finger  on  the  trigger,  he  pulled  open  the  door, 
and  stealthily  entered  the  box,  where  he  stood  right  behind  and 
within  three  feet  of  the  President.  The  play  had  advanced  to  the 
second  scene  of  the  third  act,  and  whilst  the  audience  was  intensely 
interested,  Booth  fired  the  fatal  shot — the  ball  penetrating  the 
skull  on  the  back  of  the  left  side  of  the  head,  inflicting  a  w^ound  in 
the  brain 

As  soon  as  Booth  had  fired  his  pistol,  and  was  satisfied  that  his 
end  was  accomplished,  he  cried  out,  "Revenge  for  the  South!"  and 
throwing  his  pistol  down,  he  took  his  dagger  in  his  right  hand,  and 
placed  his  left  on  the  balustrade  preparatory  to  his  leap  of  twelve 
feet  to  the  stage.  Just  at  this  moment  Major  Rathbone  sprang 
forward  and  tried  to  catch  him.  In  this  he  failed,  but  received  a 
severe  cut  on  his  arm  from  a  back-handed  thrust  of  Booth's  dagger. 
Time  was  everything  now  to  the  assassin.  He  must  make  good  his 
escape  whilst  the  audience  stood  dazed,  and  before  it  had  time  to 
comprehend  clearlv  what  had  happened.  With  his  left  hand  on 
the  railing,  he  boldly  leaped  from  the  box  to  the  stage.     The  front  of 


652  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

the  box  had  been  draped  for  the  occasion  with  the  American  flag, 
which  was  stretched  across  its  front,  and  reached  down  nearly  or 
quite  to  the  floor.  In  the  descent  Booth's  spur  caught  in  the  flag, 
tearing  out  a  piece  which  he  dragged  nearly  half  way  across  the 
stage.  The  flag,  however,  was  avenged  for  the  double  insult  which 
he  had  put  upon  it;  for  by  this  entanglement  his  descent  was 
deflected,  causing  him  to  strike  the  stage  obliquely,  and  partially 
to  fall,  thus  fracturing  the  fibula  of  his  left  leg,  on  account  of  which 
injury  his  flight  was  impeded,  and  his  permanent  escape  made 
impossible.  As  he  recovered  himself  from  his  partial  fall  and 
started  to  run  across  the  stage  with  his  dagger  brandished  aloft,  he 
....  quickly  passed  out  at  a  little  back  door  opening  into  the 
alley  where  he  had  left  his  horse,  and,  4;hough  closely  pursued,  suc- 
ceeded in  mounting,  and  rode  rapidly  away. 

The  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  General  T.  M.  Harris,  page  38. 

Pandemonium  in  the  Theater 

On  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  April,  1865,  a  few  minutes  after 
ten  o'clock,  I  was  in  company  with  a  friend  walking  on  Pennsylvania 
Avenue,  when  a  man  running  down  Tenth  Street  approached  us, 
wildly  exclaiming:  "My  God,  the  President  is  killed  at  Ford's 
Theater!"  Calling  to  my  friend  to  follow  me  I  ran  to  the  theater, 
two  blocks  away,  perceiving,  as  I  neared  it,  increasing  evidences  of 
the  wildest  excitement,  which  reached  its  climax  in  the  auditorium. 
How  it  was  that  I  worked  my  way  through  the  shouting  crowd  that 
filled  the  house,  and  found  myself  over  the  footlights  on  the  stage, 
I  am  unable  to  describe. 

The  first  person  to  whom  I  addressed  a  rational  word  was  a 
detective,  now  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  city.  I  asked  him  who  had 
done  the  shooting,  When  he  mentioned  the  name  of  Wilkes  Booth 
I  scouted  the  idea ;  but  others  insisted  that  Booth  had  been  recog- 
nized in  the  man  who  had  leaped  from  the  President's  box,  and 
rushed  across  the  stage.  Excited  crowds  during  the  War  were 
nothing  new  to  me,  but  I  had  never  witnessed  such  a  scene  as  was 
now  presented.  The  seats,  aisles,  galleries,  and  stage  were  filled 
with  shouting,  frenzied  men  and  women,  many  running  aimlessly 
over  one  another;  a  chaos  of  disorder  beyond  control,  had  any 
visible  authority  attempted  its  exercise.     The  spot  upon  which  the 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  653 

^  -  !■  _  ._ 

eyes  of  all  would  turn  was  the  fatal  upper  stage  box,  opposite  to 
which  I  now  stood.  Access  to  it  was  guarded,  but  presently  a  man 
in  the  uniform  of  an  army  surgeon  was  assisted  by  numerous  arms 
and  shoulders  to  climb  into  the  box  to  join  the  medical  men  already 
there. 

I  was  told  that  Laura  Keene,  immediately  after  the  shot  was 
fired,  had  left  the  stage  and  gone  to  the  assistance  of  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
and  I  soon  caught  a  glimpse  of  that  unhappy  lady  who  had 
apparently  arisen  from  her  husband's  side.  She  stood  in  view  for 
a  moment,  then  throwing  up  her  arms,  with  a  mournful  cry,  she 
disappeared  from  sight  of  the  stage.  I  now  made  my  way  toward 
the  box  exit  to  await  the  descent  of  Miss  Keene,  hoping  to  learn 
from  her  the  President's  condition.  I  met  her  at  the  foot  of  the 
staircase  leading  from  the  box,  and  alone.  Making  a  motion  to 
arrest  her  progress,  I  begged  her  to  tell  me  if  Mr.  Lincoln  was  still 
alive. 

"God  only  knows!"  she  gasped,  stopping  for  a  moment's  rest. 
The  memory  of  that  apparition  will  never  leave  me.  Attired,  as  I 
had  so  often  seen  her,  in  the  costume  of  her  part  in  "  Our  American 
Cousin, "  her  hair  and  dress  were  in  disorder,  and  not  only  was  her 
gown  soaked  in  Lincoln's  blood,  but  her  hands,  and  even  her  cheeks 
where  her  fingers  had  strayed,  were  bedaubed  with  the  sorry  stains! 
But  lately  the  central  figure  in  the  scene  of  comedy,  she  now 
appeared  the  incarnation  of  tragedy.  Preparations  were  now  made 
to  remove  the  President  to  a  neighboring  house,  .  .  .  and  the 
theater  was  soon  cleared  and  left  in  possession  of  the  troops  which 
had  arrived. 

Recollections  of  Lincoln's  Assassination,  Seaton  Munroe.     North  American  Review,  Vol.  CLXII, 
April,  1898,  page  424. 

"  They  Have  Killed  Papa  Dead ! " 

Probably  about  twenty  minutes  before  eleven  o'clock,  I 
stepped  up  to  the  door  in  answer  to  another  ring  at  the  bell.  Who 
should  be  there  but  Isaac  Newton,  the  Commissioner  of  Agriculture. 
....  I  admitted  him  inside  the  door,  and  at  once  closed  it.  .  . 
He  said  to  me,  "They  have  shot  the  President.  And  the  bullet,  " 
he  said,  "has  entered  the  left  side  of  his  head."  I  immediately 
hurried  upstairs  ...  to  Captain  Robert  Lincoln's  room.  He  had 
just  come  from  the  front  that  morning,  where  he  had  been  doing 
duty  on  the  staff  of  General  Grant.   .    .    .  I  simply  said,  "  Captain, 


From  The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 

LIFE  MASK  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLH 
Made  by  Leonard  W.  Volk,  the  sculptor,  of  Chicago. 


'6ci) 


LINCOLN'S  LAST  DAY  655 


there  has  something  happened  to  the  President ;  you  had  better  go 
down  to  the  theater  and  see  what  it  is.  " 

He  said  to  me,  "Go  and  call  Major  Hay."  I  went,  and  said 
to  him,  "  Major,  Captain  Lincoln  wants  to  see  you  at  once.  The 
President  has  been  shot.  "  He  was  a  handsome  young  man  with  a- 
bloom  on  his  cheeks  just  like  that  of  a  beautiful  yoimg  lady. 
When  I  told  him  the  news,  he  turned  deathly  pale,  the  color  entirely 
leaving  his  cheeks.  He  said  to  me,  "  Don't  allow  anybody  to  enter 
the  house.  "  I  said,  "Very  good,  Major.  Nobody  shall  come  in.  " 
They  took  their  departure  immediately  for  the  theater.  They  had 
been  gone  probably  half  an  hour,  when  poor  little  Tad  returned 
from  the  National  Theatre  and  entered  through  the  east  door  of  the 
basement  of  the  White  House.  He  came  up  the  stairway  and  ran  to 
me,  while  I  was  in  the  main  vestibule,  standing  at  the  window,  and 
before  he  got  to  me  he  burst  out  crying,  "O  Tom  Pen!  Tom  Pen! 
they  have  killed  Papa  dead,  they've  killed  Papa  dead!"  and  burst 
out  crying  again 

At  nearly  twelve  o'clock  that  night  I  got  Tad  somewhat 
pacified,  and  took  him  into  the  President's  room,  which  is  in  the 
southwest  portion  of  the  building.  I  turned  down  the  cover  of  his 
little  bed,  and  he  undressed  and  got  in.  I  covered  him  up  and  lay 
down  beside  him,  put  my  arm  around  him,  and  talked  to  him  until 
he  fell  into  a  sound  sleep. 

Ah !  that  was  a  sad  night  for  the  nation,  and  to  me  it  was  simply 
awful,  for  I  loved  Mr.  Lincoln  probably  better  than  I  loved  any  one 
else  in  the  world. 

Thirty-six  Years  in  the  White  House,  Thomas  F.  Pendel,  Doorkeeper,  page  42. 

The  Flickering  Light  Goes  Out 

The  first  floor  of  the  house  where  Mr.  Lincoln  had  just  been 
carried  was  composed  of  three  rooms,  opening  on  the  same  corridor. 
It  was  in  the  third,  a  small  room,  that  the  dying  man  lay. 

His  face,  lighted  by  a  gas-jet,  under  which  the  bed  had  been 
moved,  was  pale  and  livid.  His  body  had  already  the  rigidity  of 
death.  At  intervals  only  the  still  audible  sound  of  his  breathing 
could  be  faintly  heard,  and  at  intervals  again  it  would  be  lost 
entirely.  The  surgeons  did  not  entertain  hope  that  he  might 
recover  a  moment's  consciousness.  Judge  William  T.  Otto,  a 
thirty  years'  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  was  standing  at  the  becjsid^ 


656  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

holding  his  hand ;  around  the  bed  stood  also  the  Attorney-General, 
Mr,  Speed,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Gurney,  pastor  of  the  chiirch  Mr. 
Lincoln  usually  attended. 

Leaning  against  the  wall  stood  Mr.  Stanton,  who  gazed  now 
and  then  at  the  dying  man's  face,  and  who  seemed  overwhelmed 
with  emotion.  From  time  to  time  he  wrote  telegrams  or  gave  orders 
which,  in  the  midst  of  the  crisis,  assured  the  preservation  of  peace. 

The  remaining  members  of 
the  Cabinet  and  several 
senators  were  pacing  up  and 
down  the  corridor.  Thus  the 
night  passed  on.  At  last,  to- 
ward seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  the  surgeon  an- 
nounced that  death  was  at 
hand,  and  at  twenty  minutes 
after  seven  the  pulse  ceased  beating. 

Every  one  present  seemed  then  to  emerge  from  the  stupor  in 
which  the  hours  of  the  night  had  been  spent.  Mr.  Stanton 
approached  the  bed,  closed  Mr.  Lincoln's  eyes,  and  drawing  the 
sheet  over  the  dead  man's  head,  uttered  these  words  in  a  very  low 
voice : 

"He  is  the  man  for  the  ages." 

Personal  RecoUections-of  Mr.  Lincoln,  The  Marquis  de  Chambrun.     Scribner's  Magazine,  Vol.  XIIL 
January,  1893,  page  37. 


LEADING  EVENTS  TO  APRIL,  1865 

Union  capture  of  Ft.  Fisher,  N.  C Jan.  15 

Union  capture  of  Charleston,  S.  C.    ...  Feb.  18 

Sheridan's  raid  on  Lynchburg,  Va.    . .  .  March 

Union  victory  at  Five  Forks,  Va April   i 

Union  capture  of  Petersburg,  Va April    2 

Grant  takes  Richmond,  Va April  3 

Lee  surrenders  to  Grant   (Appomattox)  April  9 
General    Anderson    raises    Union    flag 

over  Ft.  Sumter     April  14 

Assassination  of  President  Lincoln.  . .  .  April  14 


CHAPTER  XXV 

The  World  in  Mourning 

0  Captain !    My  Captain ! 

O  Captain !     My  Captain !     Our  fearful  trip  is  done, 
The  ship  has  weather 'd  every  rack,  the  prize  we  sought  is  won. 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  exulting, 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim  and  daring; 

But  O  heart !  heart !  heart ! 

O  the  bleeding  drops  of  red, 

Where  on  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 

Fallen  cold  and  dead. 


O  Captain !    My  Captain !  rise  up  and  hear  tl 

Rise  up — for  you  the  flag  is  flung — for  you  the 

For  you  bouquets   and   ribbon 'd  wreaths — for  you  the  shores 

a-crowding, 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager  faces  turning; 

Here  Captain !  dear  father ! 

This  arm  beneath  your  head ! 

It  is  some  dream  that  on  the  deck 

You've  fallen  cold  and  dead. 


My  Captain  does  not  answer,  his  lips  are  pale  and  still, 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor  will, 
The  ship  is  anchor'd  safe  and  sound,  its  voyage  closed  and  done. 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with  object  won ; 

Exult,  O  shores,  and  ring,  O  bells! 

But  I  with  mournful  tread. 

Walk  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 

Fallen  cold  and  dead. 

Memories  of  President  L,incoln,  Walt  Whitman  1865.    Leaves  of  Grots,  page  36a. 
*•  C657) 


658 


THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


IMPORTANT. 


ASSASSINATION 


OF 


PRESIDENT  LINCOLN 


it 

cl 


The  President  Shot  at  the  Theatre 
Last  Evening. 


SECRETARY  SEWARD 

OAGfiEBED  IR  BU  BU 

•UT 

HOT   MORTALLY   WOUNDED. 

.*^vj.    viic    uc>a, 

sneet  over  the  dead  it 

^'^'^lareno©  and   Frederick 
Seward  Badly  Hurt. 


ESCAPE    0F~  THE   ASSASSINS.. 


Intense  l  Excitement    In 
Washington. 


SCENE  AT  THE  DEATHBED  OF  MR, 
LINCOLN. 


J.  Wilkes  Booth,  the  Actor,'  the  Allegei 
Assassin  of  the  President, 

lo.,  9^  &c. 

Prom  the  N.  Y.  Herald.  April  15,  1865. 


be 
bo 
ho 
VI 


"Don't  Cry  So,  Mamma— You  Will  Break 
My  Heart!" 

Returning  to  Mrs.  Lincoln's 
room  I  found  her  in  a  new  paroxysm 
of  grief.  Robert  was  bending  over 
his  mother  with  tender  affection,  and 
little  Tad  was  crouched  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed  with  a  world  of  agony  in  his 
young  face.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
scene — the  wails  of  a  broken  heart, 
the  unearthly  shrieks,  the  terrible 
convulsions,  the  wild  tempestuous 
outbursts  of  grief  from  the  soul. 
I  bathed  Mrs.  Lincoln's  head  with 
cold  water,  and  soothed  the  terrible 
tornado  as  best  I  could.  Tad's  grief 
at  his  father's  death  was  as  great  as 
the  grief  of  his  mother,  but  her  ter- 
rible outburst  awed  the  boy  into 
silence.  Sometimes  he  would  throw 
his  arms  around  her  neck  and  ex- 
claim, between  his  sobs : 

"Don't  cry  so,  Mamma,  don't 
cry,  or  you  will  make  me  cry  too! 
You  will  break  my  heart ! " 

Mrs.  Lincoln  could  not  bear  to 
hear  Tad  cry,  and  when  he  would 
plead  with  her  not  to  break  his  heart 
she  would  calm  herself  with  a  great 
effort  and  clasp  her  child  in  her  arms. 

Behind  the  Scenes,  Elizabeth  Keckley,  page  191. 

How  Greeley  Was  Saved  from  a  Brutal 
Attack  on  the  Dying  President 

I  have  never  seen  in  print  this 
story  of  that  fearful  night  when  Lin- 
coln was  killed.  But  one  hears  it 
freely  repeated  in  conversation  and  I 
see  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
printed  now. 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING 


659 


With  the  news  of  the  murder  of  Lincoln,  there  came  to  New 
York  every  other  terrible  message.  The  office  of  the  (New  York) 
Fribune,  of  course,  received  echoes  from  all  the  dispatches  which 
showed  the  alarm  at  Washington.  There  were  orders  for  the  arrest 
of  this  man,  there  were  suspicions  of  the  loyalty  of  that  man.  No 
one  knew  what  the  morrow  might  bring. 

In  the  midst  of  the  anxieties  of  such  hours,  to  Mr.  [Sydney 
Howard]  Gay,  the  acting  editor  of  that  paper,  there  Entered  the 
foreman  of  the  typesetting  room.  He  brought  with  him  the  proof 
of  Mr.  Greeley's  leading  article,  as  he  had  left  it  before  leaving  the 
city  for  the  day.  It  was  a  brutal,  bitter,  sarcastic,  personal  attack 
on  President  Lincoln, — the  man  who,  when  Gay  read  the  article, 
was  dying  in  Washington. 

Gay  read  the  article,  and  asked  the  foreman  if  he  had  any 
private  place  where  he  could  lock  up  the  type,  to  which  no  one  but 
himself  had  access.  The  foreman  said  he  had.  Gay  bade  him  tie 
up  ^the  type,  lock  the  galley  with 
this  article  in  his  cupboard,  and 
tell  no  one  what  he  had  told  him. 
Of  course  no  such  article  appeared 
in  the  Tribune  the  next  morning. 

But  when  Gay  arrived  on  the 
next  day  at  the  office,  he  was  met 
with  the  news  that  "the  old  man" 
wanted  him,  with  the  intimation 
that  "the  old  man"  was  very 
angry.     Gay  waited  upon  Greeley, 

"Are  you  there,  Mr.  Gay?  I 
have  been  looking  for  you.  They 
tell  me  that  you  ordered  my  leader 
out  of  this  morning's  paper.  Is  it 
your  paper  or  mine?  I  should  like 
to  know  if  I  cannot  print  what  I 
choose  in  my  own  newspaper.  "     This  in  great  rage. 

"  The  paper  is  yours,  Mr.  Greeley.  The  article  is  in  type  up- 
stairs, and  you  can  use  it  when  you  choose.  Only  this,  Mr.  Greeley : 
I  know  New  York,  and  I  hope  and  beheve,  before  God,  that  there  is 
30  much  virtue  in  New  York  that  if  I  had  let  that  article  go  into 
this  morning's  paper,  there  would  not  be  one  brick  left  upon  another 


HORACE  GREELEY 


66o  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LIXCOLX 


in  the  Tribune  office  now.     Certainly  I  should   be  sorry  if   there 
were. " 

Mr.  Greeley  was  cowed.  He  said  not  a  word,  nor  ever  alluded 
to  the  subject  again. 

James  Russell  Lowell  and  His  Friends,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  page  178. 

Richmond  Receives  News  of  the  Assassination 

During  this  period  of  waiting  came  the  news  of  the  assassination 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  chronicle  that  the  announce- 
ment was  received  with  demonstrations  of  sorrow.  If  I  did,  I 
should  be  lying  for  sentiment's  sake.  Among  the  higher  officers 
and  the  most  intelligent  and  conservative  men,  the  assassination 
caused  a  shudder  of  horror  at  the  heinousness  of  the  act,  and  at  the 
thought  of  its  possible  consequences;  but  among  the  thoughtless, 
the  desperate  and  the  ignorant,  it  was  hailed  as  a  sort  of  retributive 
justice.  In  maturer  years  I  have  been  ashamed  of  what  I  felt  and 
said  when  I  heard  of  that  awful  calamity.  However,  men  ought  to 
be  judged  for  their  feelings  and  their  speech  by  the  circumstances 
of  their  surroundings.  For  four  years  we  had  been  fighting.  In 
that  struggle,  all  we  loved  had  been  lost.  Lincoln  incarnated  to  us 
the  idea  of  oppression  and  conquest.  We  had  seen  his  face  over  the 
coffins  of  our  brothers  and  relatives  and  friends,  in  the  flames  of 
Richmond,  in  the  disaster  at  Appomattox.  In  blood  and  flame  and 
torture  the  temples  of  our  lives  were  tumbling  about  our  heads. 
We  were  desperate  and  vindictive,  and  whosoever  denies  it 
forgets  or  is  false.  We  greeted  his  death  in  a  spirit  of  reckless 
hate,  and  hailed  it  as  bringing  agony  and  bitterness  to  those 
who  were  the  cause  of  our  own  agony  and  bitterness.  To  us, 
Lincoln  was  an  inhuman  monster.  Grant  a  butcher,  and  Sherman 
a  fiend. 

Time  taught  us  that  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  marvelous  humanity, 
Appomattox  and  what  followed  revealed  Grant  in  his  matchless 
magnanimity,  and  the  bitterness  toward  Sherman  was  softened  in 
subsequent  years.  But,  with  our  feelings  then,  if  the  news  had 
come  that  all  three  of  these  had  been  engulfed  in  a  common  disaster 
with  ourselves,  we  should  have  felt  satisfaction  in  the  fact,  and 
should  not  have  questioned  too  closely  how  it  had  been  brought 
about.  We  were  poor,  starved,  conquered,  despairing;  and  to 
expect  men  to  have  no  malice  and  no  vindictiveness  at  such  a  time 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  66 1 

is  to  look  for  angels  in  human  form.     Thank  God,  such  feelings  do 
not  last  long,  at  least  in  their  fiercest  intensity. 

The  End  of  an  Era,  John  S.  Wise,  page  454. 

"He  Never  Was  Happy  after  He  Came  Here" 

Little  Tad's  frantic  grief  after  his  father  had  been  shot  was 
alluded  to  in  the  Washington  correspondence  of  the  time.  For 
twenty-four  hours  the  little  fellow  was  absolutely  inconsolable. 
Sunday  morning,  however,  the  sun  rose  in  unclouded  splendor,  and 
in  his  simplicity  he  looked  upon  this  as  a  token  that  his  father  was 
happy. 

"  Do  you  think  my  father  has  gone  to  heaven? "  he  asked  of  a 
gentleman  who  had  called  upon  Mrs.  Lincoln. 

"  I  have  not  a  doubt  of  it,  "  was  the  reply. 

"Then, "  he  exclaimed  in  his  broken  way,  "I  am  glad  he  has 
gone  there,  for  he  never  was  happy  after  he  came  here.  This  was 
not  a  good  place  for  him ! " 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House,  F.  B.  Carpenter,  page  293. 

I  Thought  It  Strange  the  Stars  Could  Shine 

The  War  was  over ! 

My  father  and  mother  talked  of  it  across  the  table,  and  the 
men  talked  of  it  at  the  store,  and  earth,  sky  and  water  called  to  each 
other  in  glad  relief,  "The  War  is  over!" 

But  there  came  a  morning  when  my  father  walked  up  from  the 
railroad  station  very  fast,  and  looking  very  serious.  He  pushed 
right  past  me  as  I  sat  in  the  door- way.  I  followed  him  into  the 
kitchen  where  my  mother  was  washing  dishes,  and  heard  him  say: 

"They  have  killed  Lincoln!"  and  then  he  burst  into  tears. 

I  had  never  seen  my  father  shed  tears — in  fact,  I  had  never 
seen  a  man  cry.     There  is  something  terrible  in  the  grief  of  a  man. 

Soon  the  church-bell  across  the  road  began  to  toll.  It  tolled  all 
that  day.  Three  men — I  can  give  you  their  names — rang  the  .bell 
all  day  long,  tolling,  slowly  tolling,  tolling,  tolling  until  night  came 
and  the  stars  came  out.  I  thought  it  a  little  curious  that  the  stars 
should  come  out,  for  Lincoln  was  dead ;  but  they  did,  for  I  saw  them 
as  I  trotted  by  my  father's  side  down  to  the  post-ofhce. 

I       Little  Journeys  to  the  Homes  of  American  Statesman,  Elbert  Hubbard,  page  428. 


662  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"Wilkes  Booth's  Morbid  Craving  for  Notoriety" 

Although  the  conspiracy  was  of  considerable  magnitude,  it 
was  not  more  than  sufficient  to  satisfy  Wilkes  Booth's  morbid 
craving  for  notoriety.  He  had  signally  failed  as  an  actor  and  was 
known  to  be  a  man  of  moody  disposition,  suffering  from  the  pangs 
of  disappointed  ambition,  and  for  some  reason  embittered  against 
authority  of  any  kind.  He  had  a  little  following  of  kindred  spirits, 
who  revolved  around  him  as  a  central  figure  and  to  whom  he  posed' 
as  a  kind  of  oracle  on  the  occasion  of  their  pot-house  assemblages. 
A  friend  of  mine  named  Christie,  who  was  doorkeeper  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  for  many  years,  knew  one  of  this  band  very  well, 
and  he  used  to  tell  Christie  some  of  the  wise  utterances  of  Wilkes 
Booth,  one  of  which  was : 

"The  fame  of  the  youth  who  fired  the  Ephesian  dome  will 
outlive  that  of  the  pious  fools  w^ho  reared  it.  " 

At  the  time  of  Booth's  capture  he  was  foimd  to  have  kept,  in 
his  flight,  a  diary,  in  which  his  egotism  was  greatly  in  evidence.  It 
was  rather  a  disjointed  affair,  full  of  wild  and  ardent  expressions. 
He  had  seen  newspaper  com^ments  and  was  surprised  and  deeply 
grieved  at  not  finding  himself  glorified  in  the  affair.  The  following 
just  as  written  by  him,  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  matter : 

"A  colonel  was  at  his  side.  I  shouted 'SVc  semper'  before  I 
fired.  In  jumping  broke  my  leg.  Passed  all  the  pickets,"  and  so 
on.     Toward  the  last  he  wrote: 

"  After  being  hunted  like  a  dog  through  swamps,  etc.,  etc.,  I  am 
here  in  despair,  and  why?  For  doing  what  Brutus  was  honored 
for, — what  made  Tell  a  hero.  "     Farther  on  he  says : 

"  I  am  abandoned  with  the  curse  of  Cain  upon  me,  when,  if  the 
world  knew  my  heart,  that  one  blow  would  have  made  me  great. " 

The  personnel  of  this  organization  under  Wilkes  Booth  as  a 
guiding  spirit  was  what  might  have  been  expected.  Payne  and 
Atzerodt  were  just  ordinary  thugs  without  a  vestige  of  character. 
Herold  was  a  young,  foppish  sort  of  fellow,  none  too  well  established 
as  compos  mentis.  Sam  Arnold  and  Miles  O'Laughlin  were  Con- 
federate common  soldiers  and  ready  enough  to  take  orders  from 
Booth,  but  when  it  came  to  facing  the  issue  they  were  foimd  wanting. 
Altogether,  they  were  a  wretched  lot  until  we  consider  John  H. 
Surratt  and  his  mother,  who  were  of  decent  family,  and  ought  to 
have  known  better  than  to  be  found  in  such  associations. 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  663 

Dr.  Mudd  was  accessory  after  the  fact  and  not  before  it,  if  he 
had  any  guilty  knowledge  of  the  conspiracy.  Where  his  sympa- 
thies really  were,  however,  was  readily  conjectured,  for  he  harbored 
Booth  and  afforded  him  every  surgical  and  friendly  assistance  in  his 
power.  Spangler  was  a  scene  shifter  at  the  theatre,  and  no  one  had 
the  remotest  idea  that  he  was  connected  with  the  assassination 
imderstandingly. 

One  thing  that  made  Booth's  act  seem  perfidious  and  dastardly 
beyond  expression  was  the  fact  that  about  three  weeks  before  that 
time  he  was  at  the  White  House  and  specially  introduced.  The 
President  greeted  him  very  cordially,  and  taking  him  by  the  hand 
said: 

"  Mr.  Booth,  I  am  proud  to  meet  you  as  a  son  of  the  elder 
Booth." 

A  New  Story  of  the  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  W.  H.  Taylor,     Leslie's  Weekly,  Vol.  CVI,  March  26, 
1908,  page  302. 

The  Funeral  in  Washington  and  the  Long,  Sad  Journey 

(Over  25,000,000  people  attended  Lincoln  services  that  sad  Wednesday.) 

On  Wednesday,  April  19th,  the  funeral  of  the  dead  President 
took  place  at  the  White  House,  in  the  midst  of  an  assemblage  of  the 
chief  men  of  the  nation.  From  the  mansion  in  which  the  beloved 
Lincoln  had  suffered  and  toiled  so  much  for  the  good  of  the  people, 
his  form  was  carried  to  the  Capitol,  ....  in  the  Rotunda  of 
which  he  lay  in  state  for  one  day,  guarded  by  a  company  of  high 

officers  of  the  army  and  navy Thousands  of  men, 

women  and  children  passed  through  the  great  building,  to  take  their 
last  look  upon  the  face  of  Lincoln,  white  in  his  coffin 

The  funeral  train  left  Washington  on  the  21st  of  April,  and 
traversed  nearly  the  same  route  that  had  been  passed  over  by  the 
train  that  bore  him,  as  President-elect,  from  Springfield  to  Wash- 
ington, four  years  before.  It  was  a  funeral  unique,  wonderful. 
Nearly  two  thousand  miles  were  traversed ;  the  people  lined  the 
entire  distance,  almost  without  interval,  standing  with  uncovered 
heads,  mute  with  grief,  as  the  somber  cortege  swept  by.  Even  night 
and  falling  showers  did  not  keep  them  away  from  the  line  of  the  sad 
procession.  Watch-fires  blazed  along  the  route  in  the  darkness, 
and  by  day  every  device  that  could"  lend  picturesqueness  to  the 
mournful  scene  and  express  the  woe  of  the  people  was  employed. 

In  some  of  the  larger  cities  the  coflEin  of  the  illustrious  dead 


664  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

was  lifted  from  the  funeral  train  and  carried  through  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  attended  by  mighty  processions  of  citizens,  forming  a 
funeral  pageant  of  proportions  so  magnificent  and  imposing  that 
the  world  has  never  since  seen  the  like. 

Thus  honored  in  his  funeral,  guarded  to  his  grave  by  famed  and 
battle-scarred  generals  of  the  army,  Lincoln's  body  was  laid  to  rest 
at  last  near  his  old  home. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  Slavery,  Noah  Brooks,  page  4S8. 

"Massa  Sam's  Dead!  0  Lord!" 

A  Southern  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  the  week 
following  the  assassination,  wrote : 

"  I  never  saw  such  sad  faces,  or  heard  such  heavy  heart-beatings 
as  here  in  Charleston  (South  Carolina)  the  day  the  news  came. 
The  colored  people  were  like  children  bereaved  of  a  parent.  I  saw 
one  old  woman  going  up  the  streets,  wringing  her  hands,  and  saying 
aloud  as  she  walked,  looking  straight  before  her,  so  absorbed  in  her 
grief  that  she  noticed  no  one : 

"  'O  Lord!  O  Lord!  O  Lord!  Massa  Sam's  dead!  Massa 
Sam's  dead!' 

"  'Who's  dead.  Aunty?' 

"  'Massa  Sam's  dead ! '  she  said,  not  looking  at  me. 

"  'Who's  Massa  Sam?'  said  1. 

"  'Uncle  Sam, '  she  said.     'O  Lord !  O  Lord !' 

"  Not  quite  sure  that  she  meant  the  President,  I  spoke  again : 

"  'Who's  Massa  Sam,  Aunty? ' 

"  'Mr.  Lincum, '  she  said,  and  resumed  wringing  her  hands, 
mourning  in  utter  hopelessness  of  sorrow,  " 

Men  of  Our  Times,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  page  95. 

Rewards  Offered  for  Apprehension  of  the  President's  Assassins 

"War  Department,  Washington,  April  20,  1865. 
"Maj.  Gen.  John  A.  Dix,  New  York: 

"The  murderer  of  our  late  beloved  President,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
is  still  at  large.  Fifty  thousand  dollars  reward  will  be  paid  by  this 
Department  for  his  apprehension  in  addition  to  any  reward  offered 
by  municipal  authorities  or  State  Executives. 

"Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  reward  will  be  paid  for  the 
apprehension  of  G,  W.  Atzerodt,  sometimes  called  '  Port  Tobacco, ' 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  665 

one  of  Booth's  accomplices.  Twenty-five  thousand  dollars  reward 
will  be  paid  for  the  apprehension  of  David  C.  Herold,  another  of 
Booth's  accomplices. 

"All  persons  harboring  or  secreting  said  persons,  or  either  of 
them,  or  aiding  or  assisting  their  concealment  or  escape,  will  be 
treated  as  accomplices  in  the  murder  of  the  President  and  the 
attempted  assassination  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  shall  be  sub- 
ject to  trial  before  a  military  commissioner,  and  the  punishment 
of  death. 

' '  Let  the  stain  of  innocent  blood  be  removed  from  the  land  by 
the  arrest  and  punishment  of  the  murderers. 

"All  good  citizens  are  exhorted  to  aid  public  justice  on  this 
occasion.  Every  man  should  consider  his  own  conscience  charged 
with  this  solemn  duty,  and  rest  neither  night  nor  day  until  it  be 
accomplished. 

"Edwin  M.  Stanton,  Secretarv  of  War." 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Edited  by  Paul  Selby,  page  244. 

Bryant's  Funeral  Ode 

(Written  for  the  Funeral  Services  held  in  New  York  City.)  ' 

O,  slow  to  smite  and  swift  to  spare. 

Gentle  and  merciful  and  just! 
Who  in  the  fear  of  God  didst  bear 

The  sword  of  power,  a  nation's  trust. 

In  sorrow  by  thy  bier  we  stand, 

Amid  the  awe  that  husheth  all. 
And  speak  the  anguish  of  a  land 

That  shook  with  horror  at  thy  fall. 

Thy  task  is  done ;  the  bonds  are  free ; 

We  bear  thee  to  an  honored  grave, 
Whose  proudest  monument  shall  be 

The  broken  fetters  of  the  slave. 

Pure  was  thy  life ;  its  bloody  close 

Has  placed  thee  with  the  Sons  of  Light 

Among  the  noble  hearts  of  those 

Who  perished  in  the  cause  of  Right. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  William  CuUen  Bryant.    Winnowings  for  Lincoln's  Birthday,  Agnes  Mawson 
page  60. 


666  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Booth  Shot  in  a  Burning  Bam — What  Became  of  His  Body  ? 

Booth,  with  David  C.  Herold,  a  fellow-conspirator,  made  his 
way  into  Virginia,  where,  eleven  days  after  the  assassination,  the 
two  were  discovered  in  a  barn  on  Garrett's  farm  near  Bowling 
Green.  The  bam  was  surrounded  by  a  squad  of  cavalrymen,  who 
called  upon  the  assassins  to  surrender.  Herold  gave  himself  up 
and  was  roundly  cursed  and  abused  by  Booth,  who  declared  that 
he  never  would  be  taken  alive. 

The  cavalrymen  then  set  fire  to  the  barn  and  as  the  flames 
leaped  up  the  figure  of  the  assassin  could  be  plainly  seen.  Colonel 
Conger  saw  him  standing  upright  upon  a  crutch  with  a  carbine  in 
his  hands.  When  the  fire  first  blazed  up,  Booth  crept  on  his  hands 
and  knees  to  the  spot,  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  shooting  the  man 
who  had  applied  the  torch,  but  the  blaze  prevented  him  from  seeing 
any  one 

His  eyes  shone  with  the  light  of  fever,  but  he  was  pale  as  death 
and  his  general  appearance  was  haggard  and  unkempt.  He  had 
shaved  off  his  mustache  and  his  hair  was  closely  cropped.  Both  he 
and  Herold  wore  the  uniforms  of  Confederate  soldiers. 

The  last  orders  given  to  the  squad  pursuing  Booth  were : 

"Don't  shoot  Booth,  but  take  him  alive. " 

Just  as  Booth  started  to  the  door  of  the  barn  this  order  was 
disobeyed  by  a  sergeant  named  Boston  Corbett,  who  fired  through 
a  crevice  and  shot  Booth  in  the  neck.  The  wounded  man  was 
carried  out  of  the  barn  and  died  four  hours  afterw^ard  where  they 
had  laid  him.  Before  he  died  he  whispered  to  Lieutenant  Baker, 
"Tell  mother  I  died  for  my  country;  I  thought  I  did  for  the  best. " 

What  became  of  Booth's  body  has  always  been  and  probably 
always  will  be  a  mystery.  Many  different  stories  are  told  concern- 
ing its  final  resting-place,  but  all  that  is  known  positively  is  that 
the  body  was  first  taken  to  Washington  and  a  post-mortem  exami- 
nation of  it  held  on  the  monitor  Montauk.  On  the  night  of  April 
2  7th  it  was  turned  over  to  two  men,  who  took  it  in  a  rowboat  and 
disposed  of  it  secretly.  How  they  disposed  of  it  none  but  them- 
selves know,  and  they  have  never  told. 

The  Story  of  Lincoln^  Life,  jn  "Abe"  l^ifKoln'f  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure, 
page  507- 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  667 

The  Burial  at  Springfield 

It  was  on  May  4th,  fifteen  days  after  the  funeral  in  Washington, 
that  Abraham  Lincoln's  remains  finally  rested  in  Oakland  Cemetery, 
a  shaded  and  beautiful  spot,  two  miles  from  Springfield.  Here,  at 
the  foot  of  a  woody  knoll,  a  vault  had  been  prepared ;  and  thither 
attended  by  a  great  concourse  of  military  and  civic  dignitaries,  by 
governors  of  States,  members  of  Congress,  officers  of  the  army  and 
navy,  delegations  from  orders,  from  cities,  from  churches,  by  the 
friends  of  his  youth,  his  young  manhood,  his  maturer  years,  was 
Lincoln  carried  and  laid,  by  his  side  his  little  son  [Willie,  whose 
casket  had  been  removed  from  Washington  with  that  of  his  father]. 
The  solemn  rite  was  followed  by  dirge  and  prayer,  by  the  reading  of 
his  last  Inaugural  Address,  and  by  a  noble  funeral  oration  by 
Bishop  Simpson. 

Then,  as  the  beautiful  day  drew  toward  evening,  the  vault 
was  closed,  and  the  great  multitudes  slowly  returned  to  their  duties. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  260. 

Tributes  to  His  Greatness 

The  funeral  pageant  was  at  an  end,  but  the  mourning  was  not 
silenced.  From  every  corner  of  the  earth  came  to  the  family  and  to 
the  Government  tributes  to  the  greatness  of  the  character  and  life 
of  the  murdered  man.  Medals  were  cast,  tablets  engraved,  parch- 
ments engrossed.  At  the  end  of  the  year,  when  the  "State  Depart- 
ment came  to  publish  the  diplomatic  correspondence  of  1865,  there 
was  a  volume  of  over  700  pages,  containing  nothing  but  expressions 
of  condolence  and  sympathy  on  Lincoln's  death.  Nor  did  the 
mourning  and  the  honor  end  there.  From  the  day  of  his  death 
until  now  the  world  has  gone  on  rearing  monuments  to  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  Vol.  II,  page  260. 

The  Astonishing  Contrast 

There  is  an  astonishing  contrast  between  the  perfect  sweetness 
and  kindness  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  sentiments  and  utterances,  whether 
private  or  public,  individual  or  official,  in  reference  to  the  Rebels 
and  the  Rebellion,  and'theirs  about  him.  Doubtless  no  loyal  citizen 
of  the  United  States  was  so  uniformly  kind  in  feeling  and  decorous 
and  even  courteous  in  expression  about  the  Rebels ;  and  doubtless 


668  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

no  such  citizen  was  so  odiously  bespattered  with  the  most  hateful 
and  vulgar  and  ferocious  insult  and  abuse,  both  public  and  private. 
To  give  the  quotations  to  prove  the  point  would  be  simply  disgusting. 
They  were  sprinkled  through  the  newspapers  and  the  public  docu- 
ments of  the  Rebellion  from  beginning  to  end  of  it. 

A  compend  and  a  proof  at  once  of  the  whole  of  them  was  that 
private  bundle  of  letters  threatening  death,  and  marked  in  Mr, 
Lincoln's  own  handwriting, 

"Assassination," 

and  kept  in  his  private  cabinet.  And  the  assassination  itself  and 
the  circumstances  connected  with  it,  constituted  another  proof  and 
specimen,  still  more  overwhelming. 

Never  since  the  times  of  the  Christian  martyrs  has  history 
recorded  a  contrast  more  humiliating  to  humanity,  between  his  kind 
words  and  kind  intentions  on  the  one  hand,  and  infamous  abusive- 
ness  and  deliberate  bloodthirsty  ferocity  in  those  who  slew  the  best 
and  kindest  friend  they  had  in  the  world. 

Men  of  Our  Times,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  page  97. 

Tragic  Fate  of  the  Five  in  the  Box  That  Night 

No  one,  not  even  the  comedian  on  the  stage,  could  ever  remem- 
ber the  last  words  of  the  piece  that  were  uttered  that  night — the 
last  Abraham  Lincoln  heard  upon  earth.  The  whole  performance 
remains  in  the  memory  of  those  who  heard  it  a  vague  phantas- 
magoria, the  actors  the  thinnest  of  specters.  The  awful  tragedy  in 
the  box  makes  everything  else  seem  pale  and  unreal.  Here  were 
five  human  beings  in  a  narrow  space — the  greatest  man  of  his  time, 
in  the  glory  of  the  most  stupendous  success  in  our  history,  the  idol- 
ized chief  of  a  nation  already  mighty,  with  illimitable  vistas  of 
grandeur  to  come;  his  beloved  wife,  proud  and  happy;  a  pair  of 
betrothed  lovers,  with  all  the  promise  of  felicity  that  youth,  social 
position,  and  wealth  could  give  them;  and  this  young  actor,  hand- 
some as  Endymion  upon  Latmos,  the  pet  of  his  little  world.  The 
glitter  of  fame,  happiness  and  ease  was  upon  the  entire  group,  but 
in  an  instant  everything  was  changed  with  the  blinding  swiftness  of 
enchantment.  Quick  death  was  to  come  to  the  central  figure  of 
that  company — the  central  figure,  we  believe,  of  the  great  and  good 
men  of  the  century.     Over  all  the  rest  the  blackest  fates  hovered 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  609 

menacingly — fates  from  which  a  mother  might  pray  that  kindly 
death  would  save  her  children  in  infancy.  One  was  to  wander  with 
the  stain  of  murder  on  his  soul,  with  the  curses  of  a  world  upon  his 
name,  with  a  price  set  upon  his  head,  in  frightful  physical  pain,  till 
he  died  a  dog's  death  in  a  burning  barn;  the  stricken  wife  was  to 
pass  the  rest  of  her  days  in  melancholy  and  madness ;  of  those  two 
young  lovers,  one  was  to  slay  the  other,  and  then  end  his  life  a 
raving  maniac. 

Abraliam  Lincoln:  A  History,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  Vol.  X,  page  294. 


Fate  of  the  Assassins  and  Others 

The  conspiracy  to  assassinate  the  President  involved,  alto- 
gether, twenty-five  people.  Among  the  number  captured  and  tried 
were:  David  C.  Herold,  G.  W.  Atzerodt,  Louis  Payne,  Edward 
Spangler,  Michael  O'Loughlin,  Samuel  Arnold,  Mrs.  Surratt,  and 
Dr.  Samuel  Mudd,  the  physician  who  set  Booth's  leg,  which  was 
broken  by  his  fall  from  the  stage  box.  Of  these,  Herold,  Atzerodt, 
Payne  and  Mrs.  Surratt  were  hanged.  Dr.  Mudd  was  deported  to 
the  Dry  Tortugas.  While  there,  an  epidemic  of  yellow  fever  broke 
out  and  he  rendered  such  good  service  that  he  was  granted  a  pardon. 
He  died  a  number  of  years  ago  in  Maryland. 

John  Surratt,  the  son  of  the  woman  who  was  hanged,  made  his 
escape  to  Italy,  where  he  became  one  of  the  Papal  Guard  in  the 
Vatican,  at-  Rome.  His  presence  there  was  discovered  by  Arch- 
bishop  Hughes,  and,  although  there  were  no  extradition  laws  to 
cover  his  case,  the  Italian  Government  gave  him  up  to  the  United 
States  authorities.  He  had  two  trials.  At  the  first  the  jury 
disagreed;  the  long  delay  before  the  second  trial  allowed  him  to 
escape  by  pleading  the  statute  of  limitation.  Spangler  and 
O'Laughlin  were  sent  to  the  Dry  Tortugas  and  served  their  time. 

Ford,  the  owner  of  the  theater  in  which  the  President  was 
assassinated,  was  a  Southern  sympathizer,  and  when  he  attempted 
to  reopen  his  theater  after  the  great  national  tragedy  Secretary 
Stanton  refused  to  allow  it.  The  Government  afterward  bought  the 
theater  and  turned  it  into  a  national  museum. 

Tlie  Story  of  Lincoln's  Life,  in  "Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  Edited  by  Col.  Alex.  K.  McClure, 
page  S08. 


670  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


"The  Most  Christlike  Mortal  That  Ever  Wielded  Power" 

The  narratives  of  these  events  must  give  place  to  the  brief 
record  of  a  story  so  sad  that  in  its  presence  all  other  sorrows  seemed 
light, — a  tragedy  which  overtopped  all  other  horrors  of  the  war. 

While  the  hearts  of  all  the  patriotic  people 

throughout  the  land  were  rejoicing  in  the  triumph  of  the  Union 
cause,  and  while  the  nation's  stage  was  being  cleared  of  the  drama 
of  the  Rebellion,  the  bullet  of  an  assassin  pierced  the  brain  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  in  a  few  hours  the  hand  that  had  written  the 
sublime  words  of  the  Inaugural  of  1861,  the  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, and  the  Address  at  Gettysburg,  was  pulseless,  and  the  great 
heart  that  had  prompted  them  had  ceased  to  beat. 

The  world  was  appalled.  Grief  and  rage  contended  for  the 
mastery  in  the  minds  of  the  people.  Amid  the  sobs  of  the  nation 
the  remains  of  the  noble  dead — the  gentlest  and  most  Christlike 
mortal  that  ever  wielded  power  in  all  the  tide  of  time — were  borne 
to  his  Western  home. 

Mr.  Lincoln  died  shortly  after  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
the  15th  of  April,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  of  that  day  the  oath  of  office 
was  administered  by  Chief  Justice  Chase  to  Vice-President  John- 
son, upon  whom  the  powers  and  duties  of  the  Presidential  office 
devolved  under  the  Constitution. 

Lije  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  George  C.  Gorham,  Vol.  II,  page  i68. 

Real  Sorrow  in  the  South  over  Lincoln's  Death 

Northerners  take  a  very  narrow-minded  view  who  suppose  that 
Lincoln  is  not  appreciated  in  the  South.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
was  esteemed  by  thousands  of  liberal-minded  supporters  during  the 
days  of  the  bloody  conflict  as  the  best  friend  the  Southern  people 
had  in  the  North.  His  assassination  was  almost  universally 
deprecated,  and  his  death  w^as  deeply  regretted  by  intelligent 
Southerners  everywhere. 

My  earliest  recollections  are  coupled  with  the  Civil  War.  I  had 
six  half-brothers  in  the  Confederate  army,  every  one  of  whom 
except  one  received  "Yankee  lead"  in  his  body.  Some  of  them 
were  wounded  several  times ;  one  was  killed  at  Vicksburg ;  another 
died  of  his  wounds  in  camp;  and  two  others  went  to  premature 
graves,  without  doubt,  as  a  result  of  their  wounds,  several  years 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  671 

after  the  War.  The  earUest  event  that  I  remember  was  when  the 
family  all  dressed  up  and  went  to  town  and  I  saw  three  of  my 
brothers  march  away  from  Eldorado,  Arkansas,  to  join  the  Confed- 
erate army  at  the  front.  My  next  recollection  was  hearing  the 
boom  of  the  cannon  on  a  still  evening  at  the  bombarding  of  Vicks- 
burg,  which  must  have  been  sixty  or  seventy  miles  away.  The  sad 
face  of  my  mother  as  she  sat  with  tear-filled  eyes  in  the  twilight  on 
that  occasion  and  pressed  me  to  her  bosom  is  indelibly  stamped  on 
my  memory.  Perhaps  this  incident  is  emphasized  by  the  fact  that, 
a  few  days  later,  came  the  news  that  one  of  my  brothers,  who  was 
only  seventeen  years  of  age,  had  been  cut  in  two  by  a  cannon-ball 
while  carrying  the  colors  of  his  company, 

I  am  sure  that  all  of  my  six  brothers  were  among  the  most 
ardent  supporters  of  the  "  Lost  Cause;"  and  I  am  equally  sure  that 
they  all  regarded  Lincoln  very  much  as  the  North  regarded  General 
Lee,  as  a  good,  honest  and  true  man,  but  on  the  wrong  side.  When 
the  news  of  his  assassination  came  a  gloom  was  cast  over  our  house- 
hold, and  I  remember  hearing  my  stepfather  say,  with  great 
seriousness,  to  my  mother:  "This  is  the  most  terrible  thing  that 
could  have  happened  to  the  South,  They  will  accuse  our  people  of 
having  killed  him,  though  we  all  know  that  he  is  the  best  friend  the 
South  ever  had  in  the  North.  " 

Correspondence  of  Thomas  Sheppard  Meek. 

End  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's  Broken  Life 

Mrs.  Lincoln  died  at  the  residence  of  her  sister,  Mrs.  Ninian  W, 
Edwards,  in  Springfield  (Illinois),  July  16,  1882.  Her  physician 
during  her  last  illness  says  of  her : 

"In  the  late  years  of  her  life  certain  mental  peculiarities  were 
developed  which  finally  culminated  in  a  slight  apoplexy,  producing 
paralysis,  of  which  she  died.  Among  the  peculiarities  alluded  to, 
one  of  the  most  singular  was  the  habit  she  had  during  the  last  year 
or  so  of  her  life  of  immuring  herself  in  a  perfectly  dark  room  and, 
for  light,  using  a  small  candle-light,  even  when  the  sun  was  shining 
bright  out-of-doors.  No  urging  would  induce  her  to  go  out  into 
the  fresh  air. 

"  Another  peculiarity  was  the  accumulation  of  large  quantities 
of  silks  and  dress  goods  in  trunks  and  by  the  cart-load,  which  she 


672  THE  STORY-UFE  OF  LINCOLN 

never  used  and  accumulated  until  it  was  really  feared  that  the  floor 
of  the  store-room  would  give  way. 

"  She  was  bright  and  sparkling  in  conversation,  and  her  memory 
remained  singularly  good  up  to  the  close  of  her  life.  Her  face  was 
animated  and  pleasing;  and  to  me  she  was  always  an  interesting 
woman ;  and  while  the  world  was  finding  fault  with  her  temper  and 
disposition,  it  was  clear  to  me  that  the  trouble  was  really  a  cerebral 
disease. " 

Herndon's  Liticoln,  William  H.  Hemdon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik,  Vol.  II,  page  144. 

Popular  Sympathy  and  Mourning  in  Canada 

The  long  and  terrible  Civil  War  in  the  United  States  was  now 
drawing  to  a  close.  The  immense  military  strength  of  the  North  at 
length  fairly  crushed  out  the  Southern  revolt.  General  Lee,  with  his 
war-worn  army,  surrendered ;  Jefferson  Davis,  the  ill-starred  presi- 
dent of  the  Confederacy,  was  captured;  and  slavery  was  dead. 
Generals  Grant  and  Sherman  were  hailed  as  the  saviours  of  the 
republic. 

But  this  hour  of  the  nation's  triumph  was  dashed  w^ith  horror 
and  grief  by  the  cowardly  and  cruel  murder  of  its  civic  head — the 
simple,  honest,  magnanimous  Abraham  Lincoln.  All  Christen- 
dom shuddered  with  abhorrence  at  the  foul  assassination.  The  heart 
of  Canada  was  deeply  stirred.  Crowded  meetings  for  the  expression 
of  the  national  sympathy  were  held,  and  the  utmost  detestation  of 
the  crime  was  avowed.  Amid  tolling  bells,  flags  at  half-mast,  and 
mourning  emblems,  the  obsequies  of  the  martyred  president  were 
celebrated  throughout  the  land.  And  much  of  the  growing  estrange- 
ment of  recent  years  between  the  two  nations  was  overcome  by  this 
exhibition  of  popular  sympathy  and  good -will. 

A  Popular  History  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  William  H.  Withrow,  D.D.,  F.  R.  S.  C,  page  467. 

What  the  English  People  Thought  of  Lincoln 

It  was  like  this :  I  was  born  in  Burnley,  Lancashire,  England, 
during  the  Civil  War  in  America.  My  native  town  and  all  the  large 
towns  around  it  were  dependent  on  American  cotton  for  their 
existence.  Lancashire  was  the  cotton -weaving  county.  When  the 
War  began,  cotton  stopped  coming  from  the  States,  and  what  you 
know  as  the  Civil  War  was  known  to  my  people  as  "The  Cotton 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  073 

Famine."  And  what  a  famine  that  was  no  one  will  ever  know 
except  those  who  took  part  in  it.  .  .  .  The  story  seems  almost  too 
horrible  to  relate.  .  .  .  My  father  said  that  when  I  was  born  there 
was  but  half  a  loaf  in  the  house,  and  many  of  his  neighbors  had  gone 
south  to  beg  their  bread  from  door  to  door.  .  .  .  First  the  news 
came  that  the  War  could  not  last  and  that  Lincoln  would  settle  it 
quickly.  The  mills  were  put  on  short  time,  three  days  a  week. 
Then  came  two  days ;  then  they  closed  altogether.  .  .  .  Hundreds 
of  half -famished  men  and  women  gathered  around  the  one  or  two 
daily  newspapers,  hoping  against  hope  and  expecting  every  morning 
that  the  Federals  had  taken  Richmond,  but  it  was  long  delayed. 
Mills  closed,  stores  closed,  mines  closed.  .  .  .  The  question  in 
every  home,  on  every  street  corner,  on  every  pallid  lip,  from  the 
old  man  to  the  child  that  could  not  understand  it  all,  was, 

"Has  Lee  surrendered  yet?" 

Do  you  want  to  know  which  side  they  were  on?  Let  me  tell 
you.  It  was  in  Glosup,  near  Manchester,  that  a  cotton  broker  got 
up  and  made  a  speech  in  one  of  the  relief  meetings.  He  hoped 
"that  the  South  would  smash  Lincoln  and  the  North  into  cocked 
hats."  He  never  finished  that  speech.  I  have  met  him  on  the 
cotton  exchange  many  a  time,  and  he  bears  a  mark  on  his  face  that 
even  the  children  call  "the  Lincoln  mark.  " 

It  was  of  no  use  for  an  aristocrat  to  attempt  to  argue  with  these 
hungry,  desperate  men.  They  had  been  too  long  already  under  the 
power  of  lord  and  landlord,  which  is  a  synonym  for  oppression  in 
that  country.  They  had  worked  too  long  at  poorhouse  wages  not 
to  feel  a  thrill  of  pride  and  fellowship  that  they  were  counted  worthy 
to  suffer  with  you  for  liberty's  sake.  .  .  .  There  were  2,300,000 
people  in  that  county  dependent  on  the  results  of  that  long-drawn- 
out  war. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  proclamation  of  liberty  to  the  slaves  is  the 
best  known  foreign  document  to  the  cotton  operatives  of  Lan- 
cashire. Many  a  boy  and  girl  can  repeat  it  off-hand.  I  remember 
the  Government  inspector  of  schools  addressing  our  school  of  twelve 
hundred  scholars  once,  and  he  asked  the  question:  "Whom  do  you 
regard  as  the  greatest  man  outside  of  England?"  and  a  hundred 
voices  shouted  in  chorus,  "Abraham  Lincoln,"  as  if  "Old  Abe" 
were  still  living.     The  second  question  was:  "Who  do  you  think 

43 


674  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

—  ■    ■    ■!      ■  I         I  ■  —  — ■■■    ■  I.I  I  1.^..  ■■■    l.l..— ^WJH 

was  the  greatest  man  that  this  country  of  ours  has  produced?" 
Here  a  medley  arose,  amid  which  John  Bright,  W.  E.  Gladstone,  and 
Tom  Brown  were  prominent.     One  little  fellow  said : 

"My  dad  says  Lincoln's  bigger'n  'm  all.  " 

In  one  corner  of  the  great  Cotton  Exchange  in  Manchester  is  a 
little  stand,  and  under  a  glass  globe  is  a  miniature  bale  of  raw  cotton, 
and  behind  it  the  legend  in  gilt  lettering : 


Part  of  the  First  Bale  of  Free    Cotton 

Was  shipped  from  West  Virginia,  U.  S.,  to  Liverpool,  1865. 

Free  Cotton  is  King.     But  what  did  it  cost? 


The  story  of  that  bale  of  cotton  is  soon  told.  People  from  all 
the  towns  "  footed  it"  to  Liverpool  and  got  a  "lurry"  (flat  wagon), 
and  trimmed  it  with  flowers  and  bunting,  and  placed  the  bale  of 
cotton  in  the  center  of  the  wagon,  and  the  flag  that  you  know  so  well 
newly  vindicated  in  liberty,  and  the  flag  under  which  I  was  born, 
and  which,  in  spite  of  all  its  mistakes  and  blunders  of  the  1 770's,  is  a 
glorious  flag,  and  between  them  the  picture  that  you  love,  that  my 
father  loved,  that  you  suffered  for,  that  my  folks  suffered  for,  the 
plain  picture  that  appeals  to  plain  people  in  all  the  world — 

Abraham  Lincoln. 

My  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  E.  Holden,     The  Outlook,  Vol.  LXX,  March  22,  1899,  page  718. 

Tributes  in  High  Places 

A  Russian  of  high  rank  said  of  Lincoln:     "That  is,  the  only 

living  ruler  whom  I  sincerely  reverence He  is  a  patriot, 

a  statesman,  a  great-hearted,  honest  man. " 

Disraeli  said  in  the  English  House  of  Commons:  "In  the  char- 
acter of  the  victim,  and  in  the  very  accessories  of  his  almost  latest 
moments,  there  is  something  so  homely  and  so  innocent  that  it  takes 
the  subject,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  pomp  of  history,  and  out  of  the 
ceremonial  of  diplomacy.  It  touches  the  heart  of  nations,  and 
appeals  to  the  domestic  sentiments  of  mankind.  "  Mr.  John  Stuart 
Mill,  the  distinguished  English  philosopher  ....  termed  Mr. 
Lincoln  "  the  great  citizen  who  afforded  so  noble  an  example  of  the 
qualities  befitting  the  first  magistrate  of  a  free  people,  and  who,  in 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  675 

the  most  trying  circumstances,  had  gradually  won  not  only  the 
admiration,  but  almost  the  personal  affection  of  all  who  love  freedom 
or  appreciate  simplicity  or  uprightness.  " 

Dr.  Merle  d'  Aubigne,  the  historian  of  the  Reformation,  wrote: 
"Who  can  say  that  the  President  did  not  lay  down  his  life  by  the 
firmness  of  his  devotion  to  a  great  duty?  The  name  of  Lincoln 
will  be  one  of  the  greatest  that  history  has  to  inscribe  on  its  annals.  " 

The  French  historian,  Henri  Martin,  wrote  of  Lincoln:  "This 
man  will  stand  out,  in  the  traditions  of  his  country  and  the  world, 
as  an  incarnation  of  the  people." 

The  author  of  "Abraham  Lincoln"  concludes  her  chapter 
about  him  in  these  simple  words:  "He  listened  to  all,  heard  all, 
weighed  all,  and  in  his  own  time  acted  by  his  own  honest  convictions 
in  the  fear  of  God,  and  thus  simply  and  purely  he  did  the  greatest 
work  that  has  been  done  in  modern  times. " 

Men  of  Our  Times,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  page  98. 

"Seeking  to  Conquer,  Not  Persons,  but  Prejudices" 

Strange  mingling  of  mirth  and  tears,  of  the  tragic  and  grotesque, 
of  cap  and  crown,  of  Socrates  and  Rabelais,  of  ^sop  and  Marcus 
Aurelius,  of  all  that  is  gentle  and  just,  humorous  and  honest,  mer- 
ciful, wise,  laughable,  lovable  and  divine,  and  all  consecrated  to 
the  use  of  man ;  while  through  all,  and  over  all,  an  overw^helming 
sense  of  obligation,  of  chivalric  loyalty  to  truth,  and  upon  all  the 
shadow  of  the  tragic  end 

Nothing  discloses  real  character  like  the  use  of  power.  It  is 
easy  for  the  weak  to  be  gentle.  Most  people  can  bear  adversity. 
But  if  you  wish  to  know  what  a  man  really  is,  give  him  power. 
This  is  the  supreme  test.  It  is  the  glory  of  Lincoln  that,  having  al- 
most absolute  power,  he  never  abused  it,  except  on  the  side  of  mercy. 

Wealth  could  not  purchase,  power  could  not  awe  this  divine, 
this  loving  man.  He  knew  no  fear  except  the  fear  of  doing  wrong. 
Hating  slavery,  pitying  the  master — seeking  to  conquer,  not  persons 
but  prejudices — he  was  the  embodiment  of  the  self-denial,  the 
courage,  the  hope,  and  the  nobility  of  a  nation.  He  spoke,  not  to 
inflame,  not  to  upbraid,  but  to  convince.  He  raised  his  hands,  not 
to  strike,  but  in  benediction.  He  longed  to  pardon.  He  loved  to 
see  the  pearls  of  joy  on  the  cheeks  of  a  wife  whose  husband  he  had 
rescued  from  death. 


676 


THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Lincoln  was  the  grandest  figure  of  the  fiercest  Civil  War.     He 
is  the  gentlest  memory  of  our  world. 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Robert  G.  IngersoU.     Edited  by  Allen  Thomdike  Rice,  page 
307. 

Emerson's  Review  of  Lincoln's  Career 

The  President  stood  before  us  as  a  man  of  the  people.  He  was 
thoroughly  American,  ....  Kentuckian  born,  working  on  a 
farm,  a  flatboatman,  a  captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  a  country 
lawyer,  a  Representative  in  the  rural  Legislature  of  Illinois; — on 
such  modest  foundations  the  broad  structure  of  his  fame  was  laid .  . 
A  plain  man  of  the  people,  an  extraordinary  fortune  attended 

him.  He  offered  no  shining  quali- 
ties at  the  first  encounter;  he 
did  not  offend  by  superiority.  He 
had  a  face  and  manner  which 
disarmed  suspicion,  which  in- 
spired confidence,  which  confirmed 
good  will.  He  was  a  man  without 
vices.  He  had  a  strong  sense  of 
duty  which  it  was  very  easy  for 
him  to  obey.    .    . 

Then  he  had  a  vast  good  na- 
ture, which  made  him  tolerant  and 
accessible  to  all ;  fair-minded,  lean- 
ing to  the  claim  of  the  petitioner. 
....  And  how  this  good  nature 
became  a  noble  humanity,  in 
many  a  tragic  case  which  the 
events  of  the  War  brought  to  him, 
every  one  will  remember ;  and  with 
what  increasing  tenderness  he 
dealt  when  a  whole  race  was' 
thrown  on  his  compassion.  The  poor  negro  said  of  him  on  an 
impressive  occasion,  "Massa  Linkum  am  eberywhere." 

Then  this  broad  good  humor,  running  easily  into  jocular  talk, 
in  which  he  delighted  and  in  which  he  excelled,  was  a  rich  gift  to 
this  wise  man.  It  enabled  him  to  keep  his  secret;  to  meet  every 
kind  of  man  and  every  rank  in  society;  to  take  off  the  edge  of  the 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING  677 

severest  decisions;  to  mask  his  own  purpose  and  sound  his  com- 
panion; and  to  catch  with  true  instinct  the  temper  of  every  com- 
pany he  addressed.  And  more  than  all,  it  is  to  a  man  of  severe 
labor,  in  anxious  and  exhausting  crises,  the  natural  restorative, 
good  as  sleep,  and  is  the  protection  of  the  overdriven  brain  against 
rancor  and  insanity. 

He  is  the  author  of  a  multitude  of  good  sayings,  so  disguised 
as  pleasantries  that  it  is  certain  they  had  no  reputation  at  first 
but  as  jests;  and  only  later,  by  the  very  acceptance  and  adoption 
they  find  in  the  mouths  of  millions,  turn  out  to  be  the  wisdom  of 
the  hour.    .    .    . 

His  occupying  the  chair  of  state  was  a  triumph  of  the  good  sense 
of  mankind,  and  of  the  public  conscience.  ...  If  ever  a  man  was 
fairly  tested,  he  was.  There  was  no  lack  of  resistance,  nor  of  slan- 
der, nor  of  ridicule.  The  times  have  allowed  no  state  secrets;  the 
nation  has  been  in  such  ferment,  such  multitudes  had  to  be  trusted, 
that  no  secret  could  be  kept  Every  door  was  ajar,  and  we  know 
all  that  befell. 

Then,  what  an  occasion  was  the  whirlwind  of  the  War.  .  .  In 
four  years — four  years  of  battle-days — his  endurance,  his  fertility 
of  resources,  his  magnanimity,  were  sorely  tried  and  never  found 
wanting .  .  .  He  is  the  true  history  of  the  American  people  of  his 
time.  Step  by  step  he  walked  before  them;  slow  with  their  slow- 
ness, quickening  his  march  by  theirs,  the  true  representative  of  this 
continent ;  an  entirely  public  man ;  father  of  his  country,  the  pulse 
of  twenty  millions  throbbing  in  his  heart,  the  thought  of  their 
minds  articulated  by  this  tongue .  .  .  Only  Washington  can  com- 
pare with  him  in  fortune. 

From  the  Remarks  at  the  Funeral  Services  held  in  Concord  (Massachusetts),  April  19th,   1865, 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.     Abraham  Lincoln,  in  the  Riverside  Literature  Series^  page  77. 

Abraham  Lincoln — "  The  First  American  " 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 

With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 
To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and  burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored  urn. 


678  THE  STORY-LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 

And  cannot  make  a  man 

Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 

Repeating  us  by  rote : 
For  him  her  Old-World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  true. 

How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead ; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth. 

But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity ! 

They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust ; 

They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 

And  supple-tempered  will 
That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring  again  and  thrust. 

His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of  mind, 

Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 

A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in^  vapors  blind ; 

Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined. 

Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human  kind. 
Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars.    . 

I  praise  him  not ;  it  were  too  late ; 
And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 
In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 

Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he: 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time. 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 
Till  the  wise  years  decide. 


THE  WORLD  IN  MOURNING 


679 


Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 
But  at  last  silence  comes ; 

These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 

Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame. 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American. 

Ode  Recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration.     The  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  James  Russell 
Lowell,  page  344. 


SHORT  SAYINGS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


"Work,  work,  work!" 

"  One  war  at  a  time.  " 

"Give  the  boys  a  chance." 

"  We  cannot  escape  history. " 

"  Hold  on  with  a  bull-dog  grip.  " 

"All  in  that  one  word,  Thorough." 

"I  can  bear  censure,  but  not  insult!" 

"  Never  regret  what  you  don't  write.  " 

"  Better  hatch  the  egg  than  smash  it. " 

"  More  pegs  than  holes  to  put  them  in.  " 

"I'm  nothing,  but  truth  is  everything.  " 

"  Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  right.  " 

"Lord  Lyons,  go  thou  and  do  likewise." 

"  Freedom  is  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth. " 

"  Don't  swap  horses  in  crossing  a  stream.  " 

"  This  nation  should  be  on  the  Lord's  side. " 

"We  are  indeed  the  treasury  of  the  world. " 

"  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might. " 

"I'm  glad  of  the  chance  to  finish  this  big  job. " 

"  Public  opinion  in  this  country  is  everything.  " 

"  Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time. 

"I  am  free  from  any  taint  of  personal  triumph. 

(680) 


M 


SHORT  SAYINGS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  681 

"Calling  a  sheep's  tail  a  leg  doesn't  make  it  so." 
"  Wealth  is  a  superfluity  of  what  we  don't  need.  " 
"  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  then  nothing  is  wrong.  " 
"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all.  " 
"Like  a  seven-foot  whistle  on  a  five-foot  boiler.  " 
"  The  gentleman  smelt  no  royalty  in  our  carriage. " 
"Many  have  got  into  a  habit  of  being  dissatisfied.  " 
"Let  them  laugh,  as  long  as  the  thing  works  well." 
"  I  know  I  am  right  because  I  know  Liberty  is  right.  " 
"  Disenthrall  ourselves,  then  we  shall  save  ourselves.  " 
"I  will  hold  McClellan's  horse  if  he  will  win  a  battle!" 
"  Is  a  man  to  blame  for  having  a  pair  of  cowardly  legs? " 
"  I  count  for  something  and  there  will  be  no  more  fighting. " 
"When  you  can't  remove  an  obstacle,  plough  around  it!" 
"  Honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and  what  we  preserve.  " 
"  That  some  are  rich  shows  that  others  may  become  rich.  " 
"  Being  elected  has  not  pleased  me  so  much  as  I  expected." 
"If  you  have  made  a  bad  bargain,  hug  it  all  the  tighter!" 
"I  call  these  weekly  receptions  my  'public  opinion  baths. '  " 
"Come  what  will,  I  will  keep  my  faith  with  friend  and  foe. " 
"  Discourage  litigation.     There  will  still  be  business  enough." 
"My  politics  are  short  and  sweet,  like  an  old  woman's  dance. " 
"  If  elected  I  shall  be  thankful,  if  not  it  will  be  all  the  same. " 
"With  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right.  " 
"  God  bless  my  mother!     All  I  am  or  hope  to  be  I  owe  to  her.  " 
"You  haven't  a  stray  post-office  in  your  pocket,  have  you?" 


682  THE  StOkY-LlFE  OP  LINCOLN 

"  We  might  just  as  well  take  the  people  into  our  confidence. ' 

"  My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union. ' 

"Be  sure  you  put  your  feet  in  the  right  place,  then  stand  firm. ' 

"  What  use  to  me  would  be  a  second  term  if  I  had  no  country? ' 

"With  a  brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain  youl' 

"  Faith  in  God  is  indispensable  to  successful  statesmanship. ' 

"In  the  corner  there's  a  rat-hole  that  will  bear  looking  into. ' 

"When  you  have  written  a  wrathful  letter — put  it  in  the  stove  F 

"  There  is  no  grievance  that  is  a  fit  object  of  redress  by  mob 
law." 

"Suspicion  and  jealousy  never  did  help  any  man  in  any  situa- 
tion." 

"If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that  thing  (slavery),  I'll  hit  it 
hard!" 

"Never  get  between  the  woman's  skillet  and  the  man's  ax- 
helve." 

"These  men  will  find  that  they  have  not  read  their  Bibles 
aright." 

"  Shakespeare  was  the  best  judge  of  human  nature  that  ever 
wrote." 

"It  is  unnecessary  to  remind  your  lordship  that  this  means 
'War.'  " 

"  It  is  better  only  sometimes  to  be  right  than  at  all  times  to  be 
wrong." 

"My  boy,  never  try  to  be  President!     If  you  do,   you  never 
will  be." 

"The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inadequate  to  the  stormy 
present. " 


SHORT  SA  YINGS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  683 

"A  private  soldier  has  as  much  right  to  justice  as  a  major- 
general." 

"  I   am  slow  to  learn  and  slow  to  forget  that  which  I  have 
learned. " 

"  I  authorize  no  bargains  for  the  Presidency,  and  will  be  bound 
by  none. " 

"This  government  cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave  and 
half  free." 

"  Sending  men  to  that  army  is  like  shoveling  fleas  across  a 
barnyard. " 

"  This  country,  with  its  institutions,  belongs  to  the  people  who 

inhabit  it. " 

"If   men   never  began  to   drink  they  would   never  become 
drunkards. " 

"  Don't  shoot  too  high — aim  low  and  the  common  people  will 
understand.  " 

"I  have  great  respect  for  the  semicolon;  it  is  a  mighty  handy 
little  fellow. " 

"  For  those  who  like  this  kind  of  book,  this  is  the  kind  of  book 
they  will  like. " 

"  For  thirty  years  I  have  been  a  temperance  man,  and  am  too 
old  to  change. " 

"  I  do  not  think  much  of  a  man  who  is  not  wiser  to-day  than  he 
was  yesterday. " 

"  Gold  is  good  in  its  place ;  but  loving,  brave  patriotic  men  are 
better  than  gold. " 

"  The  Lord  must  love  the  common  people — that's  why  he  made 
so  many  of  them.  " 

"  Better  give  your  path  to  a  dog — even  killing  the  dog  would 
not  cure  the  bite.  " 

"  Now,  sonny,  keep  that  (temperance)  pledge  and  it  will  be  the 
best  act  of  your  life.  " 


684  THE  STORY -LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

"  No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  man  without  that 
other  man's  consent. " 

"He  can  compress  the  most  words  into  the  smallest  ideas  of 
any  man  I  ever  met." 

"  Would  you  undertake  to  disprove  a  proposition  in  Euclid  by 
calling  Euclid  a  liar?" 

"It  will  be  some  time  before  the  front  door  sets  up  housekeep- 
ing on  its  own  account ! ' ' 

"  It  is  the  same  spirit  that  says :  'You  work  and  toil  and  earn 
bread  and  I  will  eat  it.'  " 

"If  Minnehaha  means  'Laughing  Water,'   'Weeping  Water' 
must  be  'Minneboohoo!'  ' ' 

"  I  am  like  the  boy  that  stumped  his  toe :  hurt  too  much  to 
laugh  and  too  big  to  cry. ' ' 

"Meet  face  to  face  and  converse  together — the  best  way  to 
efface  unpleasant  feeling. 

"Trusted  in  Providence  till  the  britchin  broke,  and  then  didn't 
know  what  on  airth  to  do!" 

"As  our  troops  can  neither  crawl  under  Maryland,  nor  fly  over 
it,  they  must  come  across  it.  " 

"I  feel  like  a  man  letting  lodgings  at  one  end  of  the  house 
while  the  other  end  is  on  fire." 

"  I  believe  I  have  made  some  mark  which  will  tell  for  the  cause 
of  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone.  " 

"  Until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by 
another,  draw^n  with  the  sword.  " 

"Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature — oppo- 
sition to  it,  in  the  love  of  justice.  " 

"  Familiarize  yourself  with  the  chains  of  bondage  and  you  pre- 
pare your  own  limbs  to  wear  them.  " 

"I'm  making  generals  now.     In  a  few  days  I'll  be  making 
quartermasters,  and  then  I'll  fix  you." 


SHORT  SAYINGS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLIV  ■   685 

-■- • .    .      .     .i_n  jam  ■  1 1  I  ■     I  II 

"That  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  " 

To  several  "weighty"  men  from  the  upper  part  of  Delaware: 
"Didn't  the  State  tip  up  when  you  got  off?" 

"I  want  it  said  of  me  that  I  plucked  a  thistle  and  planted  a 
flower  where  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow.  " 

"  Let  not  him  who  is  homeless  pull  down  the  house  of  another, 
but  let  him  labor  diligently  to  build  one  for  himself.  " 

"  Take  all  of  the  Bible  upon  reason  that  you  can,  and  the  bal- 
ance on  faith,  and  you  will  live  and  die  a  better  man. ' ' 

"  A  man  has  no  time  to  spend  in  quarrels.  If  any  man  ceases 
to  attack  me  I  never  remember  the  past  against  him. " 

"  There  are  already  too  many  weeping  widows  in  the  United 
States.     For  God's  sake  don't  ask  me  to  make  any  more ! " 

"  Like  the  pair  of  pantaloons  the  Yankee  peddler  offered  for 
sale,  'Large  enough  for  any  man — small  enough  for  any  boy.'  ' ' 

"  Nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  President.  In  my  poor, 
lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever  seen  that  any  cabbages  are  sprout- 
ing out. " 

"You  may  fool  all  of  the  people  some  of  the  time,  and  some  of 
the  people  all  of  the  time,  but  you  cannot  fool  all  of  the  people  all  of 
the  time. " 

"If  this  country  cannot  be  saved  without  giving  up  that 
principle,  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  sur- 
render it. " 

"Repeal  the  Missouri  Compromise;  repeal  all  compromises; 
repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  repeal  all  past  history; 
you  cannot  repeal  human  nature.  " 

"  If  all  that  has  been  said  in  praise  of  woman  were  applied  to  the 
women  of  America,  it  would  not  do  them  justice  for  their  conduct 
during  this  war.     God  bless  the  women  of  America ! " 


INDEX 


"A  B  C  Schools,"  25. 

"A.  Lincoln's  Imp'd  Manner  of  Buoying 
Vessels,"  200-202. 

Abolitionists,  185,  239,  255. 

Abraham  (family  name),  Lincoln's 
grandfather    killed  by  Indian,    17. 

"Abraham,"  "Father,"  viii,  459. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Minister  to 
England,  393. 

Adams,    John    Quincy,    186. 

Addresses,  see  Speeches. 

Alger,  Horatio,  Jr.,  stories,  69,  230,  316. 

"All  Quiet  along  the  Potomac,"  poem, 
460. 

Alley,  John  B.,  story,  318. 

Almanac,  current  story  about  Lincoln's 
use  of,  265. 

Alton,  Illinois,  seventh  Lincoln-Douglas 
Debate,  268,  269,  292. 

Amnesty  Proclamation,  564,  565. 

Ancestry,  English  and  American,  vii. 

Ancestry,  Quaker,  17. 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  105,  106,  363, 
364,  366,  367,  390,  395-397. 

Anderson ville.  Confederate  prison,  576. 

Andrew,  Gov.  John  A.,  400,  408,  584. 

Andrews,  E.  W.,  stories,  502,  602. 

Antietam,  465-468,  480,  494,  560, 
638. 

Antislavery,  Thomas  Lincoln's  prin- 
ciples, 29,  Abraham's,  83;  Lincoln- 
Stone  Protest,  137,  138;  185;  bill  in 
Congress,  189,  190;  256;  premature 
action,  425,  429. 

Appomattox,  Va.,  417,  632,  645,  660. 

Armstrong,  Hannah,  122,  123,  261. 

Armstrong,  Jack,  Clary's  Grove  bully, 
89.  95.  122,  123. 


Armstrong,  William  ("Duff"),  261-265. 

Armstrong  Murder  Trial,  261-265. 

Army,  Pemberton's,  555-557. 

Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  527. 

Army  of  the  Potomac,  439-469,  486, 
488,  502,  508,  510,  512,  527,  538, 
631. 

Army  of  the  Tennessee,  557. 

Army  of  Western  Virginia,  445. 

Arnold,  Isaac  N.,  stories,  41,  84,  109, 
132,  135.  136,  138,  144,  246,  280, 
292,  297,  643. 

Arnold,  Samuel,  one  of  Booth's  accom- 
plices, 662,  669. 

"Artemus  Ward"  (Charles  F.  Browne), 
viii,  348-351,  482,  483. 

Ashmun,  George,  Chairman  convention 
nominating  Lincoln,  and  of  com- 
mittee notifying  him,  327-330, 
646,  647. 

Atkinson,  Mrs.  Eleanor,   stories,  21,  24. 

"Atlanta  to  the  sea,"  Sherman's  march, 
606—610. 

Atzerodt,  G.  W.  ("Port  Tobacco"),  one 
of  Booth's  accomplices,  662,  664, 
669. 

Autobiography,  Lincoln's,  for  Congress, 
186;  after  nomination  for  Presi- 
dency, 331. 

B 

Bad  Axe,  Battle  in  Black  Hawk  War,  106. 
Baker,  Col.  Edward  D.,  137,  149,  157, 

162,  181,  186,  386,  387,  427,  435. 
Baldwin,  John,  blacksmith,  59,  60. 
Ball's   Bluff,   Battle  of,  426,  427,  429, 

455- 
Baltimore,  378,  379,  381,  400-404,  407, 
597.  600. 


(687) 


688 


INDEX 


Baltimore  &  Ohio  Railroad,  444,  453. 
Band,  Marine,  or  President's,  436,  618. 
Barrett,  Joseph  H.,  stories,  29,  39,  105, 

152,   154,   162,   183,  236,  282,  316, 

389,  642,  643- 
Bateman,  Newton,  340. 
Bates,  David  Homer,  stories,  417,  435, 

453.  476-478.   541.  581- 

Bates,  Edward,  Attorney-General,  317, 
320,  321,  431,   603,  604. 

Beardstown,  Illinois,  87,  95,  98. 

Beauregard,  G.  T.,  Confederate  Gen- 
eral, 395-397- 

Bedell,  Grace,  induces  Lincoln  to  wear 
beard,  355. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  stories,  307, 

524- 

Beers,  Ethel  Lynn,  poem,  460. 

Bell,  John,  candidate  for  President,  343. 

Berry,  William,  partner,  112,  114,  115, 
117. 

Binns,  Henry  Bryan,  story,  205. 

Bixby,  Mrs.  Lydia,  letter  from  President 
Lincoln,  584,  585. 

Black,  Jeremiah  S.,  358,  363. 

Black  Hawk,  98,  103. 

Black  Hawk  War,  98-106,  108,  129. 

"Black  Republicans,"   273,   459. 

"Blackstone,"  first  set  of,  112,  113,  115, 
128. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  404,  406,  472,  473. 

Blair,  Montgomery,  Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, 278,  345,  426,  479,  544,  547. 

Bloomington,  Illinois,  173,  218,  220, 
247,  250-254,  266,  270,  312. 

Bloomington  Convention,  250,  251,  253, 

254- 
Boone,  Daniel,  friend  of  grandfather,  17, 

19. 
Booth,  John  Wilkes,  648-652,  658,  663, 

664-666. 
"Border  Ruffians,"  239. 
Bowen,  Henry  C,  stories,  306,  345- 
Breckenridge,    John,    murder    case    at 

Boonville,  66,  67.  « 


Breckenridge,  John  C,  candidate  for 
President,   330,   331,   343. 

Bridge,  Rock  Island,  260,  261. 

Bright,  John,  532,  674. 

Brooks,  Elbridge  S.,  story,   10 1. 

Brooks,  Noah,  stories,  38,  250,  285,  311, 
353.  357.  359.  364,  504,  505.  506, 
510.  539.  546,  563,  592,  600,  603, 
607,  608,  609,  617,  619,  634,  664. 

Brown,  John,  239,  301-305,  310. 

Browne,  Francis  F.,  stories,  18,  41,  47, 
48,  64,  90,  93,  102,  202,  301. 

Browning,  O.  H.,   157,  247,  322. 

Bryant,  WiUiam  Cullen,  307,  309,  333, 
665. 

Bryant  and  Gay,  stories,  239. 

Buchanan,  James,  304,  358,  363,  366, 
369.  370.  383,  385,  387,  389.  459. 
544- 

Buchanan's  Cabinet,  358,  363,  366,  459. 

Bull  Run,  Battles  of,  viii,  415-417,  439, 
480,  486,  560,  638,  641. 

Burnside,   Gen.   Ambrose  E.,  487,  494, 

495.  541.  581. 
Burrage,    Henry   Sweetser,    story,    528 
Burt,  Col.    Silas   W.,   story,   522. 
Bush,   Isaac,   30. 

Bush,  Sally,  30,  34,  38  (see  Lincoln). 
Butler,   Gen.  Benj.  F.,  stories,  265,  410, 

411,  429.  474.  497.  498.   563.   564, 
576,  626,  627. 
Butterworth,  Hezekiah,  story,  340. 


Cabinet,   Lincoln's,  345-347.   35 1.  39 1. 

392.  393.  404,  411,  412,  430.  432- 

434.  439.  440,  441.  450.  461,  479- 

483,   511.   523.   568,   615,   623,   632, 

638,   640-642,   656. 
Calhoun,   John,   county    surveyor,    105, 

119-121,  157. 
Calls  for  troops,  398,  404,  410. 
Cameron,    Simon,    Secretary    of     War, 

320,  321,  342,  354,  395.  415.  432- 

434- 


INDEX 


68g 


Campaigns,  Lincoln's  (1832),  95,  96, 
109;  (1834),  125,  127;  (1836), 
134;  (1840),  157;  (1841  and  '42), 
181;  (1843  and  '44).  183;  (1844 
and  '45),  185;  (1846)  elected  to 
Congress,  185,  186;  (1852),  222; 
return  to  politics,  (1854),  237,  238; 
Peoria  speech  (1856),  241-244; 
Bloomington  Convention  (1856), 
250-274; for  U.  S.  Senator  (1858), 
258-295;  mottoes  and  anagrams, 
270,  337;  first  Presidential,  317- 
345,  386;  second  Presidential,  586- 
614. 

Capitol,  Illinois  State,  Vandalia,  139; 
Springfield  (old),  336,  352. 

Capital  of  Illinois,  Lincoln's  work  for 
removal,  137-139,  144. 

Caricatures,  "cabinet  making,"  346; 
campaign  poster  in  1864,  603; 
"Long     Abraham,"     604. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  415. 

Carpenter,  F.  B.,  stories,  318,  326,  366, 
420,  424,  481,  566,  568,  576,  582, 
583,  615,  623,  624,  632,  647,  661. 

Carr,  Humphrey  W.,  story,  335-337. 

Cartter,  David  K.,  322. 

Cartwright,  Rev.  Peter,  109,  185,  299, 
300. 

Cass,  General  Lewis,  loi,  108,  109,  194, 

i95>  363- 
"Catchem  and  Cheatem,"  209. 

Chambrun,  Marquis  de,  stories,  617, 
632,   656. 

Chancellors ville,  Battle  of,  viii,  508-512, 
514,  527,  532,  560. 

Chandler,  Albert  B.,  story,  335. 

Charleston,  Illinois,  fourth  Lincoln- 
Douglas    Debate,     268,     269,    285, 

367- 
Charleston  Harbor,  363,  367,  503,  642. 
Chase,    Salmon     P.,    Secretary    of    the 

Treasury,    297,   313,  321,  322,  345, 

438,  479.  485,  513,   544,   586,   587, 

588,  597,  617,  619,  670. 

44 


Chicago,  104,  105,  129,  203,  249,  251, 
255.  257,  260,  265,  267,  272,  280, 
316,  317-325.  337.  432,  465,  478, 
479.  542,  593.  594,  624,  643,  646. 

City  Point,  569-573,  631. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  Rev.,  408. 

Clay,  Henry,   109,   119,   187,    188,    192, 

197.  235- 
Cobb,  Howell,  186,  358,  365. 

Coffey,  Titian  J.,  stories,  431,  433,  604. 

Coffin,  Charles  Carleton  ("Carleton"), 
stories,  318,  328,  427,  631. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  Congressman,  after- 
wards Speaker  and  Vice-President, 
stories,  447,  479,  496,  502,  562, 
564,   574,  646,  047- 

Commissioners,  Confederate,  394. 

Compromise,  Missouri,  see  Missouri 
Compromise. 

Compromise  of  1850,  241,  244. 

Confederacy,  Southern,  348,  364,  365, 
368,  394,  399.  400,  403,  405-407, 
461,  474,  475,   514,   515,   516,   517, 

527.  532,  577,  591,  594,  597,  599. 

625,  637,  670,  671. 
Congress,  Lincoln  in,  185,  186,  189-199. 
Conkhng,  James  C,  325,  598. 
Conscription  Bill,   535-537,   543- 
Conwell,   Russell  H.,  Rev.,  stories,  308, 

567- 
Cooper     Institute,    or    Union,    Lincoln 

speaks  at,  306-311. 
Corbett,  Boston,  claimed  to  have  shot 

Wilkes  Booth,  666. 
"Cotton    Famine"  in    England    during 

the  Civil  War,  672-674. 
Crawford,  Andrew,  teacher,  42-45.  47- 
Crawford,  Fort,  Prairie  du  Chien,  Wis., 

104,  106. 
Crawford,  Josiah  ("Old  Blue  Nose"),  51, 

52,  184. 
Crawford,      Mrs.     Josiah      (Elizabeth), 

stories,    52,   57,   69,   76. 
Curtis,  William  Eleroy,  stories,    19,   2^, 

113,  186. 


690 


INDEX 


D 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  Assistant  Secretary 
of  War,  stories,  552,  577,  589,  606, 
621,  644, 

Davis,  David,  Judge  and  Senator,  206, 
208,  209,  211,  215,  217,  219,  223, 

233.  253.  255.  432. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  104-106,  305,  367, 
389,  407,  4i~8,  577.  614,  625,  637, 
672. 

Dayton,  Wm.  L.,  candidate  for  Vice- 
President,  249,  254,  321. 

Debates,  Lincoln- Douglas,  258-292. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  272,  378. 

Defrees,  Public  Printer,  420,  421. 

Delaware,  474,  475,  685. 

Democrats,  109,  119,  133,  134,  136,  158, 
183,   185,  249,  266,  286,  289,  293, 

2>ii^  2,2,(>^  427,  429,  459.  460,  543. 
Depew,  Chauncey  M.,  stories,  448,  595. 
Deserters,  468. 

Dickens,   Charles,   story,   640-642. 
Dickey,  Judge  T.  Lyle,  237: 
Dickinson,  Anna,  619. 
Dix,  Gen.  John  A.,  363,  459.  664. 
"Dixie,"  635. 
Donelson,  Fort,  466,  554. 
Dorsey,  Hazel,  first  teacher  in  Indiana, 

41,43.44- 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  Judge,  Senator 
and  rival,  137,  138,  141,  147,  149, 
151.  157.  164,  180,  222,  238,  241- 
244,  259-292,  309,  312,  330,  331, 
343.  386,  387,  394,  410. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  514,  515. 

Draft,  resistance  to,  535-537.  543- 

Dred  Scott  Decision,  see  Scott,  Dred. 

Du  Pont,  Admiral  Samuel  F.,  503. 


Tarly,  Jubal  A.,  Confederate    general, 

575- 
East  Room,  White  House,  438,  618. 

Eaton,    Gen.    John,   stories,    559,   578, 
579- 


Eckert,  Major  T.  T.,  451-453,  476-478, 

600. 
Edward,  "Old,"  White  House   servant, 

633.  636. 
Edwards,    Mrs.   N.   W.,   Mrs.   Lincoln's 

sister,  167,  671. 
Edwards,    Ninian    W.,    brother-in-law, 

137- 
Election  to  the  Presidency  (i860),  341- 

347;  (1864J,  602-605. 
Elizabethtown,  parents'  home,  23. 
Elkin,       Rev.       ("Parson")      preaches 

mother's  funeral  sermon,  37,  42. 
Ellsworth,  Col.  Elmer  E.,  334,  375,  613. 
Emancipation     of     slaves,    premature, 

425,  429;  "compensated,"  474,  475, 

614,  615. 
Emancipation    Proclamation,    474-493, 

497.  499.  542,  543- 
Emerson,    Ralph     Waldo,    remarks    on 

Lincoln,  676,  677. 
England's    attitude,    570-572. 
Ericsson,  Captain  John,  448-451. 
Euclid,  207,  284. 
Evarts,    William  M.,  321,  322. 
Everett,  Edward,  394,   545-552- 
Ewing,  James,  of  Illinois  bar,  story,  218. 
Ewing,  L.  D.,  opponent,  135. 


Facsimiles  of  Lincoln's  handwriting: 
leaf  from  lesson  book,  46 ;  certificate 
of  survey,  120;  page  from,  charge 
book  of  Stuart  &  Lincoln,  148; 
office  label,  205;  request  for  place 
for  friend,  421;  Gettysburg  Address, 
549.  550;  passes,  559,  561,  578; 
letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby,  585;  two 
letters,  588 ;  order.  616 ;  last  written 
words,  647. 

Fairfax    Court-house,    415-417. 

"Father  Abraham,"  viii,  459. 

Fell,  Jesse  W.,  312,  331. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  199,  232. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  358,  363. 


INDEX 


691 


Ford's  Theater,  645-653,  669. 
Forquer,    George,    lightning-rod    story, 

134.  135- 

Fort  Crawford,  see  Crawford,  Fort. 

Fort  Donelson,  see  Donelson,  Fort. 

Fort  Henry,  see  Henry,  Fort. 

Fort  McHenry,   see  McHenry,   Fort. 

Fort,  or  Fortress  Monroe,  see  Monroe, 
Fortress. 

Fort  Snelling,  see  Snelling,  Fort. 

Fort  Stevens,  see  Stevens,  Fort. 

Fort  Sumter,  see  Sumter,  Fort. 

Fort  Wagner,  see  Wagner,  Fort. 

Foster,  Ernest,  stories,  307,  535. 

Fox,  Capt.  G.  v.,  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  448-451,  497,  498. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  compared  to  Lin- 
coln,   ix. 

Fredericksburg,  486-488,  494,  499,  502 

514,  527.  560. 

Freeport,  Hlinois,  second  Lincoln-Doug- 
las Debate,  267,  280-283. 

Fremont,  John  C,  249;  first  conven- 
tion, 254,  409,  424-426,  429,  432, 
586;    "Cave  of  AduUani,"  597. 

Fremont,  Mrs.  Jessie  Benton,  425, 
426. 

Fry,  Gen.  James    B.,  stories,   531,  540. 

542,  591- 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  474. 
Funeral  services,  663-667. 


Galesburg,  Illinois,  fifth  Lincoln-Doug- 
las Debate,  268,  286. 

Gallaher,  J.  E.,  story,  26. 

Ganson,  John,  594,  595. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  General,  afterwards 
President,  485. 

Gentry,  for  whom  Gentryville  was 
named,    71,   72. 

Gentry,  Allen,  71. 

Gentry,  Mrs.  Allen  (Kate  Roby),  43. 

Gentryville,  Indiana,  home,  32,  50,  51, 
56,  57,60,  65,66,67,  70,  73,  184. 


Gettysburg,     town,    battle,    cemetery, 

address,    527-532;     545-552;    574, 

638,  670. 
Giddings,  Joshua  R.,  193,  320,  321. 
Globe    Tavern,    178,    179. 
Godby,  Russel,  neighbor,  116,  120. 
Goldsborough,  Admiral  L.  M.,  485. 
Gollaher,  Austin,  playmate,    25,   26. 
Gorham,  George    C,  stories,  445,  447, 

636,  670. 
Graham,   Dr.   C.   C,    signed    statement 

concerning    marriage    of    Lincoln's 

parents,  20,  21. 
Graham,  Mentor,  teacher,    86,    91,    92, 

121. 
Grant,  Gen.  U.  S.,  417,  527,  532,  553- 

581,  600,  605,  612,  613,  625,  631, 

636,  638,  645,  646,  660,  672. 
Greeley,    Horace,  stories,  259,  260,  309, 

33^>  359.   3^3   389.   576,   577.  586, 

597,  598,  658-660. 
Green,  "Aunt  Nancy,"  93. 
Green,  Bowling,  93,  95,  128,  142,  144. 
Greenbacks,   486,    512,    513. 
Greene,   William  G.,    fellow    clerk,    89, 

90,  93.  94,  99.  III.  112,  200,  223, 
224. 

Grigsby,  Aaron,  married  Sarah  Lin- 
coln, 42,  57,  64,  65,  72. 

Grigsby,  Nat  or  Nathaniel,  42,  47,  52, 
57.  64,  65. 

H 

Habeas  Corpus,  Suspension  of  Writ,  459, 

488,  489. 
Hale,    Edward     Everett,     story,     658- 

660. 
Halleck,   General  Henry  W.,  469,  471, 

505,  528,  529,  568. 
HamUn,       Hannibal,      Vice-President, 

322,  506. 
Hampton    Roads,    Va.,    447-451,    576, 

613,  614. 
Hanaford,  Mrs.  P.  A.,  stories,  63,  401. 
Hancock,  Gen.  Winfield  S.,  527, 


692 


INDEX 


Hanks,  Dennis,  cousin  and  playmate, 
21,  23,  24,  34,  38,  39,  41,  48,  53,  59, 

72.  76,  77.367.  369.  538. 
Hanks,    John,    companion,    48,   60,   72, 

74.  75,  78,  84,  315. 
Hanks,    Nancy,   mother,    19;  marriage, 

20     (see     Lincoln). 
Hardin,  John  J.,  137,  162,  181,  182,  183, 

185,  186. 
Harding,  George,  248. 

Harper's  Ferry,  Va.,  301-305,  310,  400, 
404,  453-456,  528. 

Harris,  Gen.  T.  M.,  story,  652. 

Harris,  Miss  Clara  W.,  646,  648,  669. 

Harrisburg,  Pa.,  379-381. 

Harrison,  William  Henry,  "Old  Tippe- 
canoe,"  157-161. 

Harrison's  Landing,  462-464,  473. 

Havana,    Illinois,    107,    270. 

Hay,  John,  402,  547,  655. 

Hazel,  Caleb,  second  teacher,  25. 

Head,  Rev.  Jesse,  married  Lincoln's 
parents,  20. 

Henry,  Fort,  554. 

Herndon,  Judge  William  H.,  partner, 
48,  56,  97,  168,  169,  192,  194,  221, 
223,  236,  247,  255,  299,  370,  471. 

Herndon,  William  H.,  and  Jesse  W. 
Weik,  stories,  36,  42,  47,  56,  62, 
70,    74,    78,    79.    84,    87,    98,   103, 

186,  189,    194,  206,  207,  223,  280, 
293,  672. 

Herndon,  Rowan,  97,  112,  125. 

Herold,  David  C,  one  of  Booth's  accom- 
plices, 662,  665,  666,  669. 

Hill,  Frederick  Trevor,  stories,  140,  147, 
153.  164,  185,  206,  219,  220,  221, 
223,   26s,   276,   279,   283,  370,  383, 

390- 
History  Tables,  see  Tables  of  Leading 

Events. 

Hodgensville,  born  near,  23. 

Holden,  James  E.,  story,  672-674  . 

Holland,  J.  G.,  stories,  98,  177,  178,  188, 

230,   341. 


Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  Lincoln's  love 
for  his  poems,    591,    592. 

Holt,  Joseph,  Judge-Advocate-General, 
363.  561,  562. 

Honesty,  stories  about  Lincoln's,  90, 
91,  98,  108,  115,  138,  140,  143,  145, 
146,  150,  151,  153,  157,  162,  170, 
192,  203,  249. 

Hooker,  Gen.  Joseph  H.  ("Fighting 
Joe"),  502,  510-512,  513,  514,  527- 

529- 
Houston,  Governor,  365. 
Howe,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward,  408. 
Howells,  W.  D.,  stories,  77,  330. 
Hubbard,  Elbert,  story,  661. 
Huidekoper,  Gen.  H.  S.,  story,  631. 
Hull's  surrender   (General   Cass),    108. 
Humor,  Lincoln's,  viii,  ix. 
Humor  of  the  soldiers,  538,  539. 


lies,  Elijah,  Captain  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  103,  106. 

Illinois  Central  Railroad,  73,  235,  246, 
247,  268,  284,  326,  443- 

Inaugural  Addresses,  379;  firsv  Inaug- 
ural 384-389;  second  Inaugural, 
616-619. 

Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia,  ad- 
dress,  376,   379. 

Indiana  Revised  Statutes,  48,  140. 

IngersoU,  Col.  Robert  G.,  story,  675, 
676. 

Invention,   Lincoln's,    200-202. 

Iverson.    Senator  Alfred,    365. 


Jackson,  Andrew,    104,    109,    119,   379, 

459- 
Jackson,     Thomas     J.      ("StonewaJ"). 

Confederate  general,  509,  511,  527, 

639.  640. 
Janvier,   Francis  DeHaes,  poem,  "The 

Sleeping  Sentinel,"  483-485. 
Jay,  Allen,  story,  536,  537. 


INDEX 


693 


Johnson,  Andrew,  Vice-President,  186, 
383,  600,  670. 

Johnson,    Herschel  V.,   364. 

Johnson,    Reverdy,    278,    406. 

Johnston,  Albert  Sidney,  Confederate 
general,     104,    625. 

Johnston,  John  D.,  stepbrother,  40,  47, 
69.  72,  78,  79.  84,  225,  226,  228. 

Johnston,  Joseph  E.,  Confederate  gen- 
eral, 639. 

Johnston,  Matilda,  40,  47,  70,  72. 

Johnston,  Sarah,  40,  72. 

Johnston  ("Widow"),  Mrs.  Daniel 
(Sally  Bush),  38;  married,  39  (see 
Lincoln) . 

Jones,  Capt.  William,  proprietor  of  store, 

73- 
Jonesboro,  Illinois,  third  Lincoln-Doug- 

ks  Debate,  267,  268,  284. 
Jones's    "Grocery    Store,"    Gentry ville, 

65,  66,  70. 
Judd,   Norman  B.,   247,  260,   261,   297, 

317.  378- 

K 

Kansas,    "Bleeding,"    238,     239,     252, 

297. 
Kansas- Nebraska    Bill,    237,    238,    242, 

244,  256,  260,  282. 
Keckley,    Elizabeth,   stories,   438,    640, 

658. 
Keene,  Laura,  645-653. 
Kelley,    WiUiam    D.,   stories,   327,   456, 

460,   496,   534. 
Kelso,  friend,  117. 
Kerr,  Orpheus  C,  508. 
Kilpatrick,  Gen.  Judson,  516,  517. 
Kirkpatrick,  employer  and  rival,   99. 
"Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,"  459. 
Knob  Creek,  early  home  on,  24,  26,  30. 


Lamar,  Capt.  John,  stories,  50,  67. 
Lamon,   Ward  H.,   173,    208,  379,  382, 
522,  646. 


Lamon,  Ward  Hill,  stories,  32,  34,  40, 
45i  51.  58,  59.  60,  85,  92,  no,  114, 
117.  119.  123,  125,  149,  150,  173, 
209,  333,  369- 

Lecompton,  Kansas,  238,  259,  293. 

Lee,  Fitzhugh,  story,  464. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  304,  404-407,  417,  494, 

495.  513.  514,  516,  527-531.  536, 
625,  632,  637,  639,  640,  672. 

"Leg  Cases,"  Lincoln's,  562  563. 

Leland,  Charles  Godfrey,  stories  394, 
398,  404,  407,  410. 

Letters,  Lincoln's,  first,  36;  to  Mrs. 
Browning,  145;  to  Stuart,  165; 
to  Speed,  165,  178;  to  Herndon,  192, 
194;  to  Secretary  of  State,  203;  to 
a  fellow-lawyer,  205  ;  to  a  New  York 
firm,  213;  to  stepbrother,  225-229; 
to  Hannah  Armstrong,  261;  to 
N.  B.  Judd,  297;  to  S.  P.  Chase, 
298;  of  acceptance,  330;  to  Fell, 
2SS;  to  Grace  Bedell,  355  ;  to  Thur- 
low  Weed,  359;  to  A.  H.  Stephens, 
362;  to  Seward,  384,  393;  to 
"Nasby,"  508;  to  ladies  of  Sanitary 
Fair,  542;  to  Grant,  555,  581,  612  ; 
to  Greeley,  577;  to  Mrs.  Bixby, 
585;  to  Gov.  Curtin,  588;  to  W. 
O.  Snider,  588;  to  Sherman  (Dec. 
26,   1864),  610. 

Lightning-rod,  story  of   Forquer's,  134, 

135- 

Lincoln,  Abrahajxi,  grandfather,  17. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  birth,  23  ;  babyhood, 
24 ;  moves  to  Knob  Creek,  24  ; 
first  teachers,  2  5 ;  saved  from 
drowning,  26;  first  farm  work,  28; 
leaves  Kentucky,  29;  helps  build 
camp  with  ax  at  seven  years,  34; 
helps  build  cabin,  35;  writes  first 
letter,  36;  gets  Parson  Elkin  to 
preach  mother's  funeral  sermon, 
37;  encouraged  by  stepmother,  40; 
reads  "Arabian  Nights,"  41 ;  goes  to 
school,  41-47;  six  feet  four  inches 


694 


INDEX 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

at  14  years,  43 ;  spelling,  44 ;  devours 
"Revised  Statutes,"  48;  reads  all 
the  books  he  can  borrow,  49 ;  acts  as 
ferryman,  49;  reads  while  plowing, 
50 ;  first  love  story,  50 ;  superstitions, 
51;  "pulls  fodder"  for  Weems's 
"Washington,"  51;  "bounds"  an 
idea,  52;  sports,  etc.,  54;  kicked  by 
horse,  55;  writes  satirical  rhymes, 
56,  57  ;  acts  as  hired  man,  57  ;  feats 
of  strength,  58;  ferryman  and 
butcher,  59;  saves  drunkard's  life, 
60;  studies  by  firelight,  61 ;  shaves 
off  shovel,  etc.,  to  cipher  on,  62; 
earns  first  dollar,  63  ;  takes  to  the 
"stump,"  65;  writes  for  the  press, 
66;  attends  court  at  Boonville,  66; 
"teaches"  astronomy,  68  ;  goes  coon- 
hunting,  69 ;  first  trip  to  New 
Orleans,  71;  starts  for  Illinois,  72; 
acts  as  peddler,  73 ;  helps  build 
father's  cabin  and  splits  rails,  74,  75; 
starts  out  for  self  at  twenty-one, 
75;  splits  rails,  76;  "winter  of  the 
deep  snow,"  77;  hired  by  Off'utt, 
78;  saves  three  lives,  80;  fiat- 
boat  lodges,  83 ;  second  trip  to 
New  Orleans,  83  ;  first  view  of  hor- 
rors of  slavery,  84;  throws  Need- 
ham,  85 ;  arrives  at  New  Salem,  86 ; 
acts  as  pilot,  87  ;  defeats  Armstrong 
89;  meets  Yates,  90;  clerks  in 
Offutt's  store,  91;  studies  gram- 
mar, 9 1 ;  becomes  a  candidate  for 
first  tirtie,  95;  elected  captain  in 
Black  Hawk  War,  99;  saves  an 
Indian  from  death,  100;  re-enlists, 
103;  walks  home,  107;  defeated, 
109;  storekeeper,  112;  begins  to 
study  law,  113;  store  "winks  out," 
115;  postmaster,  118;  .surveyor, 
1 19-124;  first  real  stump  speech, 
124;  enters  campaign  of  1834,  125; 
devoted    to    Ann    Rutledge,    126; 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

borrows  $200  of  Smoot,  127;  goes 
to  Legislature,  129  ;  distracted  over 
death  of  Miss  Rutledge,  131 ;  "Oh, 
why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be 
proud?"  132;  candidate  in  1836, 
133;  retaliates  on  Forquer,  134, 
and  Taylor,  136;  "Long  Nine,"  137; 
Lincoln-Stoae  protest  (1837),  138; 
removal  of  capital,  139;  does  petty 
law  business,  140;  banqueted  for 
leading  in  removal  of  State  capi- 
tal to  Springfield,  141 ;  leaves  New 
Salem,  142;  settles  in  Springfield, 
144 ;  becomes  partner  to  Stuart,  144 ; 
encounters  Douglas,  147;  defends 
Baker  and  demands  free  speech, 
150;  meets  Mary  Todd,  153  ;  works 
in  Harrison  campaign  (1840),  157; 
breaks  engagement  with  Miss  Todd, 
165;  invests  first  big  fee  for  step- 
mother, 170;  dissolves  with  Stuart, 
goes  into  partnership  with  Logan, 
171;  delivers  great  temperance  ad- 
dress (1842),  173  ;  becomes  involved 
with  Shields,  175;  duel  avoided, 
177;  married  (1842,  aged  ^s)<  178. 
180 ;  declines  support  for  Governor, 
181;  visits  "old  home"  in  Indiana, 
183;  elected  to  Congress,  185; 
visits  Henry  Clay,  187;  prepares 
bill  against  slavery  in  District  of 
Columbia,  189;  presents  "Spot" 
resolutions,  191  ;  speaks  against 
Cass,  194;  speaks  in  New  England 
for  Taylor,  197  ;  sees  Niagara  Falls, 
199;  gets  invention  patented,  200; 
flying  visit  to  Washington  (1849), 
203;  returns  to  law,  203;  studies 
Euclid,  207;  travels  circuit,  214; 
opposes  Douglas  in  1852,  222; 
farewell  letter  to  dying  father,  226; 
writes  to  stepbrother,  225,  226,  228; 
family  record,  236;  returns  to 
politics,  237 ;  makes  great  speech  at 


INDEX 


695 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

Peoria  (1854),  241;  defends  fifteen 
women  in  liquor  case  (1855),  244; 
collects  $5,000  fee  of  I.  C.  R.R.,247  ; 
first  meets  Stanton,  248;  speaks 
in  campaign  of  1856,  249;  makes 
"lost"  speech  at  Bloomington, 
1856,  250;  receives  no  votes  for 
Vice-President  (1856),  255;  nomi- 
nated by  Republicans  for  Senator 
(1857),  258;  "house  divided" 
speech,  259;  Rock  Island  Bridge 
case,  260;  ofl^ers  legal  aid  to  Han- 
nah Armstrong,  261  ;  great  Arm- 
strong murder  trial  (1858),  262- 
265;  challenges  Douglas  to  debate, 
266;  seven  joint  debates,  267-292; 
speaks  in  Kansas  and  Ohio  (1859), 
297;  wins  another  great  murder 
case,  299 ;  speaks  at  Wisconsin  fair, 
305 ;  makes  Cooper  Institute  speech 
(February  2 7, 1 860), 307-3 1 1  ;speaks 
in  New  England,  311;  first  choice 
of  Republicans  of  Illinois  for  Presi- 
dency, 316;  nominated  at  Chicago, 
322;  speech  and  letter  of  accept- 
ance, 329,  330;  writes  life-story 
for  Fell,  331-333;  great  conven- 
tion at  Springfield  (August,  i860), 
337;  elected  (November  6,  i860), 
341;  begins  "cabinet-making"  that 
night,  345;  receives  office-seekers 
and  others,  348-3  54  ;  strange  optical 
illusion,  353;  grows  a  beard,  355; 
engages  Stoddard  as  secretary,  356; 
looks  on,  helpless,  while  Bu- 
chanan's Cabinet  tries  to  wreck  the 
Government,  358,  and  Southern 
States  secede,  364  ;  corresponds  with 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  362;  says 
farewell  to  his  aged  stepmother, 
367,  369;  takes  final  leave  of  his  law 
office,  370;  farewell  to  Springfield, 
372;  travels  to  Washington,  speak- 
ing   at    Indianapolis,     Cincinnati, 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

Pittsburg,  Cleveland,  Buffalo,  New 
York  City,  Trenton,  Philadelphia, 
and  Harrisburg,  passing  through 
Baltimore  in  the  night,  372-383; 
raises  flag  over  Independence  Hall, 
Philadelphia,  377  ;  loses  Inaugural 
address  at  Harrisburg,  379; 
reaches  Washington,  (Febrxiary  23, 
1861),  382;  writes  to  Seward,  384; 
delivers  Inaugural,  386-389; 
attempts  to  relieve  Fort  Sumter, 
391;  replies  to  Seward's  assump- 
tions, 393  ;  instructs  Major  Ander- 
son at  Fort  Sumter,  395  ;  issues  call 
for  75,000  men  (April  15,  1861), 
398;  confers  with  Maryland  men 
who  protest,  40 1 ;  anxious  days,  402  ; 
another  call  for  soldiers,  404 ;  sends 
F.  P.  Blair  to  R.  E.  Lee,  406;  mild 
measures  angrily  received,  407; 
last  interview  with  Douglas,  410; 
declines  foreign  intervention,  411; 
persists  in  plain,  simple  mes- 
sages, 414,  420;  receives  news  of 
first  battle  of  Bull  Run  (July  21, 
1861),  415-417;  hampered  by  Fre- 
mont's premature  antislavery 
proclamation,  425;  takes  right 
stand  in  "Trent  affair"  against 
popular  clamor,  429-431;  gets  rid 
of  obnoxious  Secretary  of  War, 
432  ;  appoints  Stanton,  433  ;  incon- 
solable grief  over  death  of  Willie, 
435-438;  patient  with  McClellan, 
439-473;  studies  strategy,  441; 
visits  McClellan's  headquarters, 
442,452,  461,  467,  472;  issues  first 
general  War  Order,  444 ;  deeply 
interested  in  the  Monitor,  447- 
451;  distressed  over  blunders  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  453-457;  dis- 
appointment over  Antietam,  465- 
469 ;  dismisses  McClellan  and  re- 
calls him,  469-471;   stops  McClel- 


696 


INDEX 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

lan's  "game,"  473;  experiments 
with  "compensated"  Emancipa- 
tion, 474-476;  writes  first  draft 
of  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
476;  reads  Proclamation  to  Cabi- 
net, 481 ;  receives  news  of  defeat  at 
Fredericksburg,  488  ;  suspends  writ 
of  habeas  corpus,  489 ;  signs  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation  (January  i, 
1863),  491;  suffers  from  an  attack 
of  smallpox,  496;  visits  Butler's 
department,  497 ;  receives  formal 
notice  of  betrothal  of  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wales,  502 ;  visits 
Hooker's  headquarters,  504 ;  deep 
distress  over  defeat  at  Chancellors- 
ville,  508-512;  gives  wise  military 
advice  to  Hooker,  513;  narrowly 
escapes  assassination,  522;  tells 
senators  the  Blondin  story,  523; 
appoints  Meade  to  succeed  Hooker, 
resigned,  528;  bitter  disappoint- 
ment over  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
531;  sends  original  of  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation  to  Sanitary 
Fair,  Chicago,  542;  delivers  ad- 
dress at  Gettysburg,  548;  writes 
letter  to  Grant  (July  10,  1863), 
555;  issues  Amnesty  Proclamation, 
564;  first  meeting  with  Grant, 
(March  9,  1864),  568;  visits  Grant 
at  City  Point  (March,  '64),  570; 
sends  Greeley  to  Niagara  as  peace 
commissioner,  577;  writes  famous 
letter  to  a  bereaved  Boston  mother, 
584 ;  plans  the  admission  of  Nevada, 
589;  enforces  Stanton's  obedience 
590;  renominated  for  President, 
598;  re-elected,  602;  congratulates 
Sherman,  610;  arranges  for  Robert 
to  become  one  of  Grant's  aides,  612  ; 
Hampton  Roads  Conference,  613- 
615;  second  Inaugural,  616,  617; 
Inauguration  reception,  618 ;  enters 


Lincoln,  Abraham — Continued 

Richmond,  627-631;  returns  from 
City  Point,  631;  comes  back  to 
Washington,  632;  receives  news  of 
Lee's  surrender,  634 ;  responds  to 
serenade  (Tuesday  evening,  April 
II,  1865),  635;  sends  last  telegram, 
635;  meets  Cabinet  for  the  last 
time,  638-642;  goes  driving  with 
his  wife,  642,  643;  last  official  acts, 
643,  644;  goes  to  theater,  645- 
648;  last  writing,  647;  received 
with  great  enthusiasm  at  theater, 
648;  assassinated,  648-653  ;  carried 
across  the  street,  655  ;  death  on  the 
morning  of  April  15,  1865,  656; 
funeral  in  White  House,  Wednes- 
day (April  19),  663,  cortege  to 
Springfield,  111.,  664;  burial,   667. 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Mary  Todd,  wife,  178, 
180,  215,  235,  236,  283,  316,  326, 
328,  334,  345.  353,  375,  386,  387, 
400,  412-414,  435-438,  502,  506, 
525,  582,  632,  635,  642,  643,  645, 
647,  648,  653,  658,  661,  671,  672. 

Lincoln,  Edward,  son,  236. 

Lincoln,  Gov.  Levi,  198. 

Lincoln,  Josiah,   uncle,    17,   18. 

Lincoln,  Mordecai,   uncle,   17,   18. 

Lincoln,  Nancy  Hanks,  mother,  mar- 
riage, 20;  pioneer  housekeeping,  21, 
24,  25,  29;  sickness  and  death,  36, 

37.  38. 

Lincoln,  Robert  Todd,  eldest  son,  236, 
311,  334,  379,  380,  612,  613,  638, 
639,  640,  653,  655,  658. 

Lincoln,  Sarah,  or  Nancy,  sister,  born, 
22,  32,  38,  39,  42,  57;  marriage  and 
death,  63. 

Lincoln,  Sally  Bush  Johnston,  step- 
mother, 39,  40,  42,  43,  45,  48, 
53,  62,  70,  72,  227-229,  367,  369. 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  father,  17,  19;  mar- 
ried Nancy  Hanks,  19,  20,  21,  30, 
33,  38;  married  Sally  Bush  Johns- 


INDEX 


<^97 


Lincoln,  Thomas — Continued 

ton,  39, 43.  S3.   55-   6i,   69,   72,   77, 
223-225;  death,  226,  227,  369. 

Lincoln,  Thomas  ("Tad"),  youngest 
son,  231,  236,  300,  376,  435,  502, 
512,  513,  531,  566,  567,  575,  576, 
580,  581,  582,  610,  611,  615,  616, 
633-635.  653,  654,  666. 

Lincoln,  William,  son,  230,  236,  43  5- 
4^8,   566,   667. 

Livermore,  Mary  A.,  stories,  324,  465, 
469,  498,  520,  543. 

Locke,      David      R.      ("Petroleum     V. 

Nasby"),  stories,  viii,  277,  292,  299, 

417.  423.  483,   508,   544,   561,   588, 

590- 
Logan,     Judge     Stephen     T.,     partner, 

147,   171,   172,  299. 

"Long  Nine,"  The,  137,  140,  141. 

Longstreet,  Confederate  general,  527. 

Lossing,  Benson  J.,  stories,  379,  430. 

"Lost  Speech,"  Lincoln's,  250-254. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  408,  430 ;  Com- 
memoration   Ode,    677-679. 

Lyons,  Lord,  British  Ambassador  406, 
502. 


McClellan,  George  B.,  247,  284,  432,  438, 
439-473.  476,   494,   495,   601,   603. 

"McClellan's  Own  Story,  "441-444,  456- 
458,  467,  469,  471- 

McCormick  versus  Manny,  reaper  case, 
248,   278. 

McClure,  Col.  Alex.  K.,  editor,    stories, 

124,  133.  155.  163,  164,  171,  178, 
180,  209,  214,  222,  231,  232,  286, 
355,  380,  395,  407,  412,  419,  461, 
472,  486,  495,  522,  524,  529,  538, 
547,  566,  594,  602,  605,  614,  632, 
666. 

McClure,  J.  B.,  editor,  story,  485. 

McDowell,  Gen.  Irvin,  415-417. 

McHenry,     Fort,     500-502. 

McNamar,  John  (o/»a5  McNejl),  126,  129. 


Manassas,  415-417,  446,  453,  454,  457, 
458. 

Mann,  Horace,  186. 

Maryland,   400-404,   475,   527. 

Mason  and  Slidell,  Confederate  com- 
missioners,   429. 

Massachusetts,  Sixth  Regiment,  400, 
401,  404. 

Meade,  Gen.  George  G.,  504,  527-531. 

Medill,  Joseph,  editor,  593,  594. 

"Merrimac,"   The,  447-451. 

Messages,  420,  421,  607,  608. 

Mexican  War,  186,  191,  243,  285,  439. 

Ministers  of  Springfield  against  Lincoln, 

340.  341- 
Missouri    Compromise,    138,    237,    238, 

241-244,  324. 
"Monitor,"     The,     448-451. 
Monitors,  "Montauk,"  and  others,  503. 
Monroe,    Fortress,   445,   463,   485,    575, 

576,  613. 
"Montauk,"  monitor,  503,  666. 
Montgomery,  Alabama,  347,  368,  400. 
Montgomery,   D.   H.,    stories,  238,  367. 
Morse,  John  T.,  Jr.,   stories,    192,    294, 

365- 
Morton,  Oliver  P.,  Governor  of  Indiana, 

459-  537- 
Mudd,  Dr.  Samuel,  who  set  Booth's  leg, 

663,  669. 
Munroe,  Beaton,  story,  652,  653. 

N 

"Nasby,"    "Petroleum    Vesuvius,"    see 

Locke,  D.  R. 
Nash,    Louise   A.,   story,    157. 
"National  debt,"  Lincoln's,  114,  115. 
Needham,  champion  wrestler,  84,  85. 
Nelson,  Thomas  H.,  comet  story,  195. 
Nevada,  admission  of,  588,  589. 
New  England,   Lincoln    speaks  in,   198, 

199,  311- 
New  Orleans,  Lincoln's  first  trip  to,  71; 

second  trip,  83  ;  battles  at,  28,  466. 

New  Salem,  82,  86-142,  471, 


698 


INDEX 


Niagara  Falls,  Lincoln  visits,  199; 
Greeley  meets  Confederate  com- 
missioners, 577. 

Nicolay,  Helen,  stories,  191,  440,  474- 
476,  494,  613,  626. 

Nicolay,  John  G.,  stories,  no,  166, 
323,   384,  401,  524,  545.  551- 

Nicolay  and  Hay,  stories,  18,  27,  49, 
72,  75,  86,  87,  89,  106,  108,  116, 
161,  172,  176,  177,  226,  228,  235, 
305.  393.  598,  669. 

Nolen  Creek,  birthplace,  23. 

Norfolk,  450,  485. 


Oberholtzer,  Ellis  Paxson,  story,  462. 
O'Connor,  T.  P.,  stories,  125,  155. 
Office-seekers,  348-353.  354.  407. 
Ofifutt,    Denton,    employer,    78,  79,  83, 

84,  86,  87,  93,  95,  98,  no,  117. 
Oglesby,  Gov.  Richard,  315,  644,  645- 
"Ogmathorial   Court,"    209. 
O'Loughlin,    Michael   or  Miles,  one    of 

Booth's  accomplices,  662,  669. 
Ottawa,    Illinois,   first  Lincoln- Douglas 

Debate,  267,  268,  269,  272-277,  317. 
Ould,  Robert,  389. 
Owens,  Mary  S.,  144,  145, 


Pappville,   Illinois,  first  stump  speech, 
124. 

Parrott,  John  H.,  Nancy  Hanks's  guar- 
dian, 20. 

Payne,    Louis,   one   of   Booth's  accom- 
plices, 662,  669. 

Pea  Ridge,   Battle  of,  466. 

Pendel,      Thomas    F.,     doorkeeper     of 
White  House,  story,  653-655. 

Pendleton,   Louis,  stories,  363,  614. 

Pemberton,    Confederate   general,    527, 

555.  556. 
Peninsula,  campaign  on,  461,  560. 
Peoria  Speech   (1854),   241-244,   324. 
Petersburg,  Illinois,  joS,  123,  140,  142. 


Pettifogger,  Lincoln  as,  140. 
"Phoenix,"      John      (George      Horatio 

Derby),  645- 
Phillips,   Wendell,  495,  496. 
Pickens,    Governor,    390,   391. 
Pierce,   Frankhn,   242,  ^T^i,  544- 
Pigeon   Creek,  settlement   between  Big 

and  Little   Fork,  home  in  Indiana, 

32,  39,  54,  64. 
Pinkerton,   Allan,   378,   380-382. 
Polk,  James  K.,  192. 
Poore,    Ben:    Perley,    193. 
Porter,  Admiral  David,  story,  629. 
Porter,  Gen.   Horace,    stories,  555,  557, 

568,  570-572. 
Postmaster,  Lincoln  as,  11 7-1 19. 
Prairie  Fork,  south  fork  of  Pigeon  Creek, 

home,  32. 
Pratt,  Silas  G.,  stories,  70,  210. 
Presidency,  Lincoln  mentioned  for,  253, 

254,  312-314,  316. 
Proviso,  Wilmot,  see  Wilmot  Proviso. 
Putnam,  M.   Louise,    stories,   238,  374, 

375.  377.  378,  391.  397.  402,  489, 

536.  565. 


Quaker  ancestry  of  Lincoln,   17. 
Quaker,  The,  and  the  draft,  536,  537. 
Quincy,  Illinois,  sixth  Lincoln- Douglas 
Debate,  268,  269,  288-291. 


Radford,  Reuben,   store  at  New  Salem, 

I lo-i 12, 
Rappahannock  River,  446,486-488,  513, 

666. 
Rathbone,  Major  H.  R.,  646,  648-651. 
Raymond,  Henry  J.,   stories,  587,  596. 
"Rebecca"    of  the  "Lost  Townships," 

175-177- 

Relations,  kindness  to,  229,  230. 

Removals,  Lincoln's,  to  Knob  Creek  (at 
four  years),  24 ;  to  Indiana  (at  seven 
years),  30;  to  new  cabin  (at  eight 


INDEX 


699 


Removals,  Lincoln's — Continued 

years),  34;  to  Illinois  (at  twenty- 
one  years),  72;  to  New  Salem  (at 
twenty-two  years),  86;  to  Spring- 
field (at  twenty -eight  years),  143. 

Republicans,  249,  250;  first  National 
Convention  of,  254;  258,  273,  288, 
289,  293,  297,  298,  305,  310,  312, 
3^3,  316,  2,32,,  342,  343.  347.  355. 
384,  427- 

Reynolds,  Governor  of  Illinois,  98,  106. 

Rhymes,  Lincoln's,  46,  47;  Lincoln's 
"copies,"  47;  "Chronicles  of  Reu- 
ben," 56;   about  his  old  home,  184. 

Richardson,  Joseph  C,  neighbor,  47,  58. 

Richmond,  Va.,  399,  403,  406,  417,  455, 
463,  513.  599.  625-631,  646,  660. 

Riney,  Zachariah,  first  teacher,  25. 

Riots,  draft,  535,  536. 

"River  Queen"  (steamboat),  570. 

Roby,  Kate,  schoolmate,  45,  68. 

Rock  Island  Bridge  Case,  260,  261. 

Rock  Spring  Farm,  birthplace,  23. 

Roll,  John,  stories,  79-82. 

Rolling  Fork,  30. 

Romine,  John,  neighbor,  60;  story,  61, 
62. 

Rothschild,  Alonzo,  stories,  27,  65,  249, 
267,  282,  284,  306,  418,  434,  588, 
617. 

Rusling,  Gen.  James  F.,  story,  532. 

Rutledge,  Ann,    126,  127,  129-133,  144. 

Rutledge,  James,  114,  116,  126. 

Rutledge's  dam,  83,  200. 

Rutledge's  tavern,    112. 


Saint  Louis,  260,  278,  317,  425,  426. 

Sanford,  E.  S.,  451,  452. 

Sangamon,  county,  river,  town,  78,79, 

80,    82,    83,   95-99,   loi,   133,   137, 

211,  315.  360,  570. 
Sanitary    Commission,    464,    465,    542., 

543- 
Sanitary  Fair,  543. 


Savannah  captured,  609,  610. 

Sayings,  short,  of  Lincoln,  680-685. 

Schenck,  Gen.  R.  C,  435. 

Schurz,  Gen.  Carl,  stories,  258,  289,  291, 
414,  422,  450. 

Scott,  Dred,  258,  278,  279,  282. 

Scott,  William  ("The  Sleeping  Senti- 
nel"),   483-485,    61  r. 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  104,  191,  222,  379, 
390,  415,  424,  439,  440,  455. 

Scovel,  James  M.,  stories,  473,  507,  523, 

539.   587,  593- 
Secession,     364,    365,     369,    389,    394, 

398- 
Secretaries,  356,  384,  393,  401,  402,  441, 

462,  510-512,  524,  547,  552. 
Selby,  Paul,    stories,  91,  116,   151,   161, 

170,   196,  215,  221,  226,  262,  277, 

3^3,  357.  395,  4io,  418,  421,  449, 

451,  490.  491.  497.   500.   513.   514. 

624,  665. 
"Sentinel,"   "Sleeping,"   The,  483-485, 

611,  612. 
"Seven  Days  Battle,"  476. 
Seward,  Frederick,  379,  490,  658. 
Seward,  William  H. ,  Secretary  of  State, 

62,    199,    259,    313,    316,    317-322, 

325,  344,  345,  361,  379,  381,  382, 

384.  391.  392,  411.  412,  421,  430. 

432,  438,  441.  463,  480,  481,  490. 

491.  504,  540,  547.  613,  615,  619, 

623,  658,  665. 
Seymour,   Gov.    Horatio,    521. 
Shakespeare,    Lincoln's  knowledge    of, 

117.  595- 
Sheridan,  Gen.  Philip  H.,  631. 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  418,  606-610,  638, 
660,  672. 

Shields,  James,  137,  175,  176. 

Shiloh,   Battle  of,   466. 

Short,  James  ("Uncle  Jimmy"),  be- 
friends  Lincoln,    121. 

Sickles,  Gen.  Daniel,  383,  504,  531,  532. 

Sixth  Massachusetts,  see  Massachusetts 
Sixth. 


7O0 


INDEX 


Slavery,  reason  for  Thomas  Lincoln's 
removal,  29;  Abe  sees  with  "un- 
conquerable hate,"  83;  237,  239- 
244.  252,   255,   256,  474,  475. 

Slidell  and  Mason,  Confederate  com- 
missioners, 429-431. 

Smallpox,  Lincoln's  attack,  496. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  532-534. 

Smoot,  friend,    no,   127. 

Snelling,     Fort,     105. 

Soldiers'  Home,  480,  520,  522.  524,  579. 

Spangler,  Edward,  one  of  Booth's 
accomplices,    662,    669. 

Speeches,  and  parts  of  speeches,  by- 
Lincoln,  108,  125,  150,  153,  158- 
160,  173,  174,  191.  192.  194.  I95r 
211,  222,  239,  240,  241-244,  245, 
252,  258,  259,  260,  271,  277,  279, 
281,  285,  286,  288;  Cooper  In- 
stitute, 306-311,  315;  of  accept- 
ance,   329;    farewell  to  Springfield, 

372,  373.  374.  375.  377.  378;  first 
Inaugural,  386-388;  Gettysburg, 
548-552;  to  serenade,  600-609; 
second  Inaugural,  616,  617;  to 
negroes  in  Richmond,  629;  last  ad- 
dress, 634,  635. 

Speed,  James,  Attorney-General,64o-642. 

Speed,  Joshua  F.,  most  intimate  friend, 
143,  162,  165,  166,  169,  178. 

"Spot  Resolutions,"  191,  192. 

Springfield,  lUinois,  79,  84,  97,  122,  124, 
128,  134,  137.  138,  140,  141,  143- 
180,    188,    203-236,    237-256,   261, 

297.  300.  318,  325-  326,  327-373; 
farewell,  374;  526,  631,  643;  burial, 
667. 
Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  Secretary  of  War, 
248,  363,  417.  418,  433,  434.  442, 
444,  446,  451.  459.  461,  463,  469- 
471,  472,  481-483,  485.  486,  500, 
510,   511,   522,   523,   533,   538.   539. 

541,  552.  563.  567.  580.  59°.  59t. 
601,  637,  639,  640,  641,  642,  644. 
646,  656,  665. 


"Star  of  the  West,"  fired  on,  367. 

Statue,  Emancipation,  Boston,  492 ; 
Florence,  Italy,  493. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  186,  194,  362, 
365,   613,   614. 

Stevens,  Fort,  575. 

Stevens,    Thaddeus,    506,    507. 

Stoddard,  William  O.,  Lincoln's  secre- 
tary, stories,  67,  69,  71,  127,  131, 
356,  512,  636. 

Stone,  Dan,  antislavery  protest,  137, 
138. 

Stories,  Lincoln's,  why  told,  viii,  ix,  x; 
183,   193,   207,   215,   218,   220,   223, 

353.  413.  443.    504,    505,    520-522, 

676,  677. 
Stowe,   Mrs.    H.    B.,    stories,    146,   218, 

414.  524,  664,  668,  675. 
Stragglers'  Camp,  Alexandria,  Va.,  468. 
Stuart,   Major  John  T.,    105,    109,   115, 

128,   144,    147.  148,  150,    152,    153, 

165,   168. 
"Sugar-coated,"  in  message,  420. 
Sumner,    Charles,    361,    431,  621,    622, 

632,  640. 
Sumter,   Fort,   366,   391,   394-397.   398, 

417.  503.  642. 
Surratt,     John     H.,     one     of     Booth's 

accomplices,    662,    669. 
Surratt,  Mrs.  Mary  E.,  662,  669. 
Surveyor,  Lincoln  as,  119-124,  142,  360. 
Swett,  Leonard,  205,  211,  212,  324. 


Tables  of  leading  events :  17  69- 1800,  19; 
1801-1815,  28; 1816-1830,  74;  1831 
—1840,161;  1841-1850,214;  1851 
-i860,  343;  i86i,  431;  1862,  491; 
1863,  566;  1864,  606;  to  April, 
1865,  656. 

"Talisman"    (steamboat),    97,    98. 

Taney,    Chief-Justice,    Roger    B.,    387, 

389- 
Tarbell,  Ida  M.,   stories,  21,  25,  28,  35, 

SO,  52.  53.  54,  57,  66,  68,  73,  76,  80 


INDEX 


701 


Tarbell,  Ida  M. — Continued 

82,  96,  100,  118,  121,  122,  129,  156, 
167,  168,  170,  182,  184,  185,  199. 
200,  217,  220,  231,  237,  252,  261, 
268,  269,  270,  295,  300,  309,  326, 
334,  335,  343.  348,  359.  362,  386, 
400,  402,  404,  426,  430,  431,  432, 
441,  491.  526,  530,  555.  561,  599. 
610,    639,    646,    667. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  401,  402. 

Taylor,  Col.  "Dick,"  "Bloated  Aristo- 
crat,"  136. 

Taylor,  James    (Anderson's  Creek),  58, 

59- 

Taylor,  W.  H.,  stories,  650,  662,  663. 

Taylor,  Zachary  ("Old  Rough  and 
Ready"),  104,  191,  197,  198. 

Temperance,  94,  163,  164,  173,  174, 
188,   189,  244,  245,  328,  570. 

Thayer,   William  M.,  stories,  43,  263. 

Thompson,    Jacob,    363,    644. 

Thompson,  Nathan  M.  ("Dow"),  wrest- 
ler, 104. 

Tibbies,  Thomas  H.,    stories,  288,  375, 

376- 
Todd,    Mary,    153,    154,    155,    165,    167, 

169;  married,  1842,  to  Lincoln,  see 

Lincoln,  Mary  Todd. 
Todd,  Robert  S.,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  father, 

153.  235- 
Toombs,    Robert,    186,   365. 
Toucey,     Isaac,     358. 
Townsend,  Gen.  E.  D.,  stories,  420,  575. 
Treat,  Judge,  207,  300. 
"Trent  Affair,"  429-431. 
Trent  brothers,   115,  116. 
Trumbull,  Lyman,  Judge  and  Senator, 

238,  285,  292,  293. 
Turnham,    David,   town  constable,  48, 

55.  60. 
Tyler,  John,    159,   161. 

U 

Usher,  John  P.,  Secretary  of  the  Inte- 
rior, 152,  547. 


Vallandigham,   Clement   L.,    459,   460, 

543.  544- 
Van  Buren,  Col.  John  D.,  520,  521. 
Van  Buren,  Martin,  159,  182,  183. 
Vandalia,  Illinois,  129,  137,-139. 
Verses,  Lincoln's  schoolboy  rhymes,  46, 

47;  "Chronicles  of    Reuben,"    56; 

on  old  home,  184. 
Vice-President,    votes  for  Lincoln  for, 

254.  255. 
Vicksburg,  527,  532,  555,  556,  638,  670, 

671. 
Victoria,  Queen  of  Great  Britain,  502. 
Villard,   Henry,    stories,   283,  353,  354, 

373.488. 
Virginia  secedes,  398-400,  403-405,  407. 

W 

Wade,  Ben,  586,  597. 

Wade-Davis   Manifesto,    586. 

Wagner,  Fort,  592,  593. 

War  of  1812,  27,  29. 

War  Order,  Lincoln's  first,  444,  445. 

Ward,"Artemus,"  see  "Artemus  Ward." 

Ward,  Judge  Hamilton,  interview,  483. 

Washburne,   EHhu  B.,  3S2,  383. 

Washington,  George,  Weems's  Life  of, 
51;  speech  about  (February  22, 
1842),  174;  speaks  of,  in  farewell  to 
Springfield,  373;  at  Columbus,  O., 
374;  at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  377;  raises 
flag  at  Independence  Hall  (Feb- 
ruary 22,   1861),  378. 

Webster,  Daniel,   193,  247,  278,  379. 

Weed,  Thurlow,  199,  317,  318,  359. 

Weik,  Jesse  W.  (with  W.  H.  Hemdon— 
which  see — co-author  of  Herndon's 
Lincoln),   213,   254,   255. 

Weitzel,    General    Godfrey,    498,    629, 

635- 
Weldon,  Judge,  206,  220. 
Wells,  Gideon,  Secretary  of  the  Nary, 

345.347- 


702 


INDEX 


Whig,  119,  133,  134,  136,  149.  157.  158, 
160,  161,  175,  181,  183,  185,  186, 
191,  197,  198,  256,  267,  276. 

White,  Horace,  stories,    271,  280,  293. 

White,    Hugh    L.,    133. 

White  House,  vii,  viii,  ix,  59,  167,  389, 
400,  401,  408,  410,  418,  450,  478, 
487,  488,  490.  491.  497.  505.  510. 
511,  522,  534,  541,  545.  548,  552, 
557.  560,  561,  566,  568,  573,  574, 
579,  596,  600,  603,  606,  613,  615, 
618,  633-635,  637-647.  653,  658, 
661,  663. 

"White  House  of  the  Confederacy,"  403, 
629—631. 

Whitman,   Walt,   580,   618,   657. 

Whitney,  Henry  C,  stories,  77,  95,  104, 
112,  139,  142,  144,  146,  215,  225, 
252,  253,  254,  255,  256,  284,  297. 

Whittier,  John  G.,  poem,  "The  Eman- 
cipation   Group,"    492. 

"Wide  Awakes"  of  i860,  334- 

Wigwam,  Chicago,  317-324;  Spring- 
field, 338. 

Wilderness,  The,  Battle  of,  573. 

Wilkes,  Charles,  Captain  of  the  San 
Jacinto,  "Trent  Affair,"   429-431. 


Williams,  Henry  L.,  stories,  45,  59,  140, 

172,   180,  276,  417,  476,  483,  486, 

515.  520,  597. 
Willard's    Hotel,    382,    384,    385,    487, 

586. 
Wills,  Judge  David,  545,  547. 
Wilmot  Proviso,  The,  241,  243. 
Wilson,     Senator    Henry      (afterwards 

Vice-President),  487,  488. 
Winchester,  Va.,  453,  455,  514. 
"Winter  of  the  deep  snow,"   in  Hlinois, 

77. 
Winthrop,  Robert  C,  Speaker,  186.' 
Wise,  John   S.,   story,    661. 
Withrow,  W.  H.,  D.D.,  story,  672. 
Wood,  Fernando,   359,   544. 
Worden,  Capt.  John  L.,  450,  451- 
Wright       Case,       "Skin       defendant," 

322. 


Yates,     Richard,     War     Governor     of 
Illinois,  89,  90,  325. 


Zouaves,  Chicago,  334,  375. 


SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


It  is  a  pleasant  duty  to  make  acknowledgment  here  of  many  kindnesses  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  "Lincoln''  publishers,  authors  and  collectors,  who  have- 
generously  placed  valuable  materials  at  disposal  for  use  in  this  mosaic  of  stories 
and  pictures.  Thanks,  hrst  of  all,  are  due  Miss  Ida  M.  Tarbell  and  her  publishers, • 
The  McClure  Company,  for  permission  to  use  many  stories  and  illustrations 
from 

The  Early  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

To  The  McClure  Company,  also,  with  the  concurrence  of  the  family  of  General 
Carl  Schurz,  for  valued  extracts  and  one  engraving  from 

The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz;  and  for  an  excerpt  from 
Lincoln  and  Other  Poems,  by  Edwin  Markham. 

To  the  cordial  liberality  of  The  Century  Company  for  a  wide  range  of  materials 
for  The  Story-Life,  chosen  from  what  might  be  termed  the  Century  Lincoln  Library^ 
as  follows : 

Abraham  Lincoln:  A  History,  by  John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay; 

A  Short  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  John  G.  Nicolay; 

The  Boys'  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Helen  Nicolay; 

The  Century  Book  of  Famous  Americans,  by  Elbridge  S.  Brooks; 

Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  by  many  participants  and  writers; 

Washington  in  Lincoln's  Time,  by  Noah  Brooks; 

Campaigning  with  Grant,  by  General  Horace  Porter,  LL.D. ; 

Lincoln  in  the  Telegraph  Office,  by  David  Homer  Bates,  and 

Lincoln  the  Laivyer,  by  Frederick  Trevor  Hill. 

Also,  for  a  number  of  interesting  extracts  from  Scribner's  Monthly  (before 
the  founding  of  The  Century  Magazine),  and  from  The  Century  also,  contributed 
thereto  by  Noah  Brooks,  General  Horace  Porter,  W.  Lewis  Frazer,  Colonel  Silas 
W.  Burt,  and  by  two  of  Lincoln's  great  biographers,  John  G.  Nicolay  and  Jesse 
W.  Weik. 

To  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company,  for  like  liberality  in  permitting  almost 
carte  blanche  selections  from  many  of  their  indispensable  standard  authors,  one 
of  whom  is  F.  B.  Carpenter,  painter  of  the  great  Emancipation  picture  in  the 
Capitol,  whose 

Six  Months  at  the  White  House  was  a  pioneer  revelation  of  Lincoln's  life  there. 
This  collection  gave  a  strong  impetus  to  the  publishing  of  Lincoln's  stories.  Car- 
penter's book  was  a  kind  of  "story  life"  of  Lincoln  for  six  months  at  least. 


704  SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Lincoln,  Master  of  Men,  by  Alonzo  Rothschild,  the  ablest  addition  to  Lincoln 
literature  which  has  yet  appeared  in  the  twentieth  century. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  by  John  T.  Morse,  Jr.; 

Memoirs,  by  Henry  Villard; 

Essay,  by  Carl  Schurz;  Remarks,  by  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson;  Essay,  by  James 
Russell  Lowell  (in  the  famous  Riverside  Literature  Series)  ; 

Reminiscences,  by  Julia  Ward  Howe ; 

The  Life  and  Public  Services  of  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  by  George  C.  Gorham. 

The  End  of  an  Era,  by  John  S.  Wise,  of  Virginia  (viewing  Lincoln  from  a 
Southern  standpoint)  ;  . 

James  Russell  Lowell,  by  Horace  E.  Scudder; 

James  Russell  Lowell  and  His  Friends,  by  Edward  Everett  Hale  (author  of 
The  Man  without  a  Country),  whose  contribution  is  a  new  story  of  Lincoln  and 
Greeley,  and  one  of  the  most  graphic  in  The  Story-Life ; 

All  Quiet  along  the  Potomac,  by  Ethel  Lynn  Beers,  in 

An  American  Authology,  edited  by  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman; 

The  Emancipation  Group,  by  John  G.  Whittier,  and  the  excerpt  from  the 

Commemoration  Ode,  by  James  Russell  Lowell,  from  the 

Complete  Works  of  both  of  those  great  poets. 

To  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  for  the  privilege  of  choosing  from 
The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Isaac  N.  Arnold; 
The  Children's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  M.  Louise  Putnam; 
Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Ward  Hill  Lamon. 

To  D.  Appleton  &  Company,  for  permission  to  select  from  their  edition  of 

Herndon's  Lincoln,  by  William  H.  Herndon  and  Jesse  W.  Weik; 

Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  by  Charles  A.  Dana; 

General  Lee,  by  his  Nephew,  Fitzhugh  Lee; 

Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War,  by  Brevet  Major-General  E.  D.  Townsend; 

In  the  Boyhood  of  Lincoln,  by  Hezekiah  Butterworth ; 

Incidents  and  Anecdotes  of  the  Civil  War,  by  Admiral  Porter; 

Lincoln  in  Story,  by  Silas  G.  Pratt. 

To  J.  B.  LiPPiNCOTT  Company,  for  selections  from 

The  True  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  William  Eleroy  Curtis;  ^ 

Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  James  M.  Scovel  in 
Lippincott's  Magazine. 

To  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  for  stories  and  four  illustrations  from 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Downfall  of  American  Slavery,  by  Noah  Brooks; 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  by  Charks 
Godfrey  Leland ; 

Little  Journeys  to  the  Homes  of  American  Statesmen,  by  Elbert  Hubbard; 
Lincolnics:  Familiar  Sayings  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Henry  Llewellyn  Williams- 
Lincoln  and  Stanton,  by  William  D.  Kelley,  M.  C. ; 
Gettysburg  and  Lincoln,  by  Henry  Sweetser  Burrage. 


SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  70S 


gg^HMrftoM^i^&^iMMbitfk^lM 


To  E.  P.  DuTTON  &  Co.,  for  an  extract  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Henry  Bryan  Binns. 

To  T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.,  for  a  story  and  an  illustration  from 
Historic  Americans,  by  Elbridge  S.  Brooks,  and  for  several  extracts  from 
Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  reprinted  from  the  Independent  and  edited 
by  the  Rev.  William  Hayes  Ward,  D.D. 

To  G.  W.  Dillingham,  for  a  number  of  stories  from 
The  Lincoln  Story  Book,  by  Henry  L.  Williams; 
The  Book  of  Artemus  Ward,  and 

Behind  the  Scenes,  by  Elizabeth  Keckley    (once  a  slave),  for  years  a  seam- 
stress in  the  White  House. 

To  The  Robert  Clarke  Company,  for  a  liberal  allowance  of  stories  from 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Presidency,  by  Joseph  H.  Barrett,  LL.D. 

To  LoTHROP,  Lee  &  Shepard  Company,  for  two  full-page  illustrations  from 
The   True  Story   of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by   Elbridge  S.   Brooks,   and   for  two 
selections  from 

The  Struggles  of  Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  by  David  R.  Locke,  and  its  introduc- 
tion by  Charles  Sumner. 

To  A.  D.  WoRTHiNGTON  &  Co.,  for  graphic  narrations  from 
My  Story  of  the  War,  by  Mary  A.  Livermore. 

To  The  Neale  Publishing  Company,  for  a  selection  from 

Thirty-six  Years  in  the  White  House,  by  Thomas  F.  Pendel,  Doorkeeper. 

To  William  Beverly  Harison,  for  several  reprint  selections  from 
Winnowings  for  Lincoln's  Birthday,  by  Agnes  Mawson. 

To  the  Judge  Company,  for  a  cartoon  from 

Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Neivspaper,  and  two  extracts  and  a  cut  from 
A  New  Story  of  the  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  by  W.  H.  Taylor  in 
Leslie's  Illustrated  Weekly. 

To  GiNN  &  Company,  for  two  extracts  from 

The  Leading  Facts  of  American  History,  by  D.  H.  Montgomery. 

To  George  W.  Jacobs  &  Company,  for  excerpts  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Ellis  Paxson  Oberholtzer,  and 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  by  Louis  Pendleton. 

To  Thompson  &  Thomas,  for  stories  and  letters  from 

Stories  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  edited  by  Paul  Selby. 

To  Harper  &  Brothers,  for  the  use  of  a  cartoon  from  Harper's  Weekly. 

To  Longmans,  Green  &  Company,  for  selections  and  facsimiles  from 
Grant,  Lincoln  and  the  Freedmen,  by  Gen.  John  Eaton,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

To  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  for  an  extract  from  Bryant  and  Gay's 
A  Popular  History  of  the  United  States. 


7o<5  SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


To  Cassell  &  Company,  Limited,  for  two  extracts  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Ernest  Foster. 

To  WiLiAM  Briggs,  Toronto,  for  one  selection  from 

A   Popular   History    of   the   Dominion   of   Canada,   by   William   H.   Withrow^ 
D.D.,  F.R.S.C. 

To  Chapman  &  Hall,  London,  for  two  selections  from 
Some  Old  Love  Stories,  by  T.  P.  O'Connor. 

To  The  John  C.  Winston  Company,  for  stories  from 

Personal  Glimpses  of  Celebrated  Men  and  Women,  by  Russell  H.  Conwell,  and 

The  Aiitobiogrflphy  of  Allen  Jay,  and  illustrations  from  many  standard  works. 

To  Mrs.  Henry  C.  Whitney  and  Major  William  H.  Lambert,  for  selections 
from 

Life  on  the  Circuit  with  Lincoln,  and 
Lincoln  the  Citizen,  by  Henry  C.  Whitney. 

To  William  O.  Stoddard,  the  celebrated  author  of  many  juvenile  stories,  and 
the  only  living  secretary  to  President  Lincoln,  for  permission  to  select  at  will  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  the  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life, 
Inside  the  White  House  in  War  Times, 
The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln,  and 
Lincoln  at  Work. 

To  F.  F.  Browne,  for  a  number  of  stories  from 
The  Every-Day  Life  of  Lincoln. 

To  Colonel  Alexander  K.  McClure,  for  permission  to  use  numerous  selec- 
tions from 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  Men  of  War-Times  of  which  he  is  the  author,  and  from 
"Abe"  Lincoln's  Yarns  and  Stories,  edited  by  him. 

To  Miss  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  for  excerpts  from  her 

He  Knew  Lincoln,  and  from 

Lincoln's  Boyhood,  by  Mrs.  Eleanor  Atkinson,  both  stories  having  appeared  in 

The  American  Magazine. 

To  The  Outlook,  for  a  good  part  of 

My  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  James  E.  Holden. 

To  Collier's  Weekly,  for  the  privilege  of  quoting  selections  from 
A  Battle  of  the  Giants,  by  Frederick  Trevor  Hill,  and 
Lincoln  in  the  War  Office,  by  Albert  B.  Chandler. 

To  The  North  American  Review,  for  part  of 
Recollections  of  Lincoln's  Assassination,  by  Seaton  Munroe. 

To  Success  Magazine,  for  extracts  from 

Reminiscences,  by  Thomas  H.  Tibbies  and  William  O.  Stoddard. 

To  I-ittell's  Living  Age,  for  an  extract  from  a  reprinted  article  by  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe. 


SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  707 


T©  The  Saturday  Review,  for  a  paragraph  from  its  editorial  on 
Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  edited  by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice. 

To  The  Boston  Sunday  Globe,  for  parts  of 
A  Rare  Letter  and  Its  Curious  Story. 

To  The  Watchman  and  Reflector,  for  a  short  story  by  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe. 

To  The  Green  Bag,  for  a  story  entitled 

Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Louise  A'hmuty  Nash. 

To  Current  Literature  Publishing  Co.,  for  a  number  of  brief  extracts  from 
the  Centenary  Edition  of  the 

Life  and  Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

To  the  Librarian  and  Assistants  of  the  Free  Library  of  Philadelphia; 

To  the  Librarian  and  Assistants  of  the  Mercantile  Library  of  Philadelphia ; 

To  the  Librarian  and  Assistants  of  the  Friends'  Free  Library  of  Germantown, 
Philadelphia; 

To  the  Librarian  and  Assistant  of  the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia 
— to  each  and  all  for  many  courtesies  and  attentions ; 

And  to  the  Librarian  and  Assistants  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, for  permission  to  reproduce  an 

Original  Letter  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  for  other  kindnesses. 

To  General  Henry  Shippen  Huidekoper,  for  a  story  from  his  valu?.ble 
Notes  and  Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

To  the  Honorable  George  B.  McClellan,  Mayor  of  New  York  City,  for  per- 
mission to  make  numerous  selections  from  his  distinguished  father's  book,  entitled 
McClellan's  Own  Story. 

To  Colonel  Henry  Watterson,  for  the  use  of  a  report  from  his  great  lecture  on 
Abraham  Lincoln. 

To   the  family  of  the   Marquis   de  Chambrun,   for   several   stories   from   his 
Personal  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 

To  the  Honorable  Reed  Smoot,  United  States  Senator  from  Utah,  for  informa- 
tion concerning  his  relative,  Lincoln's  friend  Smoot,  of  whom  two  stories  are 
given  herein. 

To  the  Honorable  Robert  Todd  Lincoln;  and  to  Major  William  H.  Lambert 
and  Messieurs  Charles  W.  McLellan,  Judd  Stewart,  and  Francis  D.  Tandy,  of 
The  Lincoln  Fellowship,  for  the  use  of  originals  from  their  collections  and  for 
courteous  suggestions  in  aid  of  this  publication. 

To  Messieurs  Isaac  Markens  and  John  Brosnan,  of  New  York;  Truman 
H.  Bastlett,  the  sculptor,  of  Boston,  and  Lowrie  McClurg,  of  Chicago,  for  th* 
loan  of  originals,  and  for  orher  helpful  courtesies. 


7o8  SPECIAL  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

To  Pinkerton's  National  Detective  Agency,  for  access  to  letters  in  the 
History  and  Evidence  of  the  Passage  of  Abraham  Lincoln  from  Harrisburg, 
Pa.,  to  IVashington,  D.  C,  on  the  twenty-second  and  tzventy-third  of  February,  1861. 

To  several  friends  who  "knew  Lincoln"  and  gave  their  valuable  aid  in  this 
published  work,  but  are  too  modest  in  refusing  to  allow  credits  therefor. 

And,  finally,  to  the  publishing  successors  and  owners  of  plates  and  rights  in 
tlie  following  books,  whose  publishers  have  discontinued  business  or  have  not 
replied  to  requests  for  permission : 

The  Life  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  W.  D.  Howells; 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  J.  G.  Holland, 

The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Ward  H.  Lamon; 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Backwoods  Boy,  by  Horatio  Alger,  Jr.; 

A  Biographical  Sketch  of  His  Excellency,  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  Charles  Henry 
Hart,  LL.B.; 

Anecdotes  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  J.  B.  McClure; 

Abraham  Lincoln,  His  Life  and  Public  Services,  by  Mrs.  P.  A.  Hanaford; 

Men  of  Our  Times,  by  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe; 

The  American  Conflict,  by  Horace  Greeley; 

The  Pioneer  Boy,  by  William  M.  Thayer; 

Best  Lincoln  Stories,  by  J.  E.  Gallaher; 

Lincoln  and  Sezvard,  by  Gideon  Welles; 

Reminiscences  of  Lincoln,  by  Henry  J.  Raymond; 

Lincoln  and  His  Cabinet,  A  Lecture  before  the  New  Haven  Colony  Historical 
Society,  by  Charles  A.  Dana ; 

The  Assassination  of  Lincoln,  by  General  T.  M.  Harris; 

Memoirs  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  by  A.  L.  Long,  his  Military  Secretary; 

Lossing's  Pictorial  History  of  the  Civil  War,  by  Benson  J.  Lossing; 

Reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  distinguished  men  of  his  time;  edited 
by  Allen  Thorndike  Rice,  giving  short  stories  by :  Gen.  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  the  Hon. 
Elihu  B.  Washburne,  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  Charles  Carleton  Coffin,  Frederick 
Douglass,  Maj.  Ben :  Perley  Poore,  Titian  J.  Coflfey,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  the  Hon.  William  D.  Kelley,  Col.  Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  the  Hon.  Schuyler 
Colfax,  the  Hon.  Charles  A.  Dana,  Gen.  James  B.  Fry,  the  Hon.  Chauncev  M. 
Depew,  David  R.  Locke  ("Petroleum  V.  Nasby"),  Leonard  Swett,  E.  W.  Andrews, 
fcnd  John  B.  Alley. 


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